'If you had asked for 10 such phones as ransom, we would have given them'

Police and university teachers primarily suspect that Ishayat Shahriar alias Apratim, 13, the only son of Nahida Begum, an associate professor at the Bangla Department of Comilla University, might have been murdered in an attempt to steal an iPhone.

However, the exact motive for the murder and the identities of those involved have not yet been confirmed. The iPhone the teenager was carrying has also not been found.

A day after he went missing, police recovered Ishayat's body from the jungle in the Sananda area of the Lalmai hills near the university on Saturday. Police also reported injury marks on his head.

Ishayat was a seventh-grade student at the Border Guard Public School in Kotbari. He lived with his parents in the Kotbari area under Ward No. 24 of Cumilla Sadar South Police Station.

According to family sources, Ishayat left home around 2:30 pm on Friday with his mother's iPhone, saying he was going to take photos with friends. He did not return home afterward. Attempts were made to trace the location of the mobile phone.

Up until 6:30 pm yesterday, the phone's location was traced to Gondhomoti in the Kotbari area, which is adjacent to the university. After that, the phone was found switched off.

Following the incident, Ishayat's father, KM Firoz Shahriar, filed a general diary (GD) at the police station. Later, around 1:00 pm today, police received information that Ishayat's body was lying in the jungle of the Lalmai Sananda hill area near the university.

Police then went to the scene and recovered the body. How he died and how he ended up in that jungle still remains unclear.

Comilla University Proctor Professor Abdul Hakim said that various law enforcement units, including the Police, DB and Special Response Battalion were contacted in search of the teenager.

"But unfortunately, it is true that we did not find the boy alive. The mother's iPhone he had with him was also not found," he told Prothom Alo.

Ishayat's family is devastated by the loss of their only child. After being unable to find him since Friday afternoon, the family received news of his body being recovered on Saturday.

News of Ishayat’s death has cast a shadow of grief over teachers, students, officers and employees of Comilla University. Teachers and students have called for the motive behind the killing to be uncovered and those responsible to be arrested quickly.

Expressing anger over the incident, Abdul Hakim said, "We simply cannot accept such a death of the only son of Bangla Department Associate Professor Nahida Begum. The university family is mourning this incident."

Following the recovery of the body, university teacher Mohammad Mahmudul Hasan Khan expressed his grief over Ishayat's death in a Facebook post. He wrote, "You killed the boy just for an iPhone. If you had asked for 10 such phones as ransom, we would have given it to you. Apratim has been killed. O Allah, grant his parents the strength to bear this."

Cumilla Sadar South Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Mohammad Rakibul Islam informed that the body will be sent to the Cumilla Medical College morgue for an autopsy.

He told Prothom Alo that the police have been working on the matter with utmost importance from the very beginning of the incident. Work is underway to identify the individuals involved in the murder. Details regarding this will be disclosed later.