'Uttarkhan family could have been murdered'

Three members of a family found dead inside a flat in the city’s Uttarkhan area could have been murdered.

Forensic physicians at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital said this on Monday after conducting autopsies on their decomposed bodies.

The woman and her daughter were strangled to death while the son was found with a slit throat, said DMCH forensic department chief Sohel Mahmud.

"The woman and her daughter died first while the son succumbed to his injuries later. His body was severely bruised," he told Prothom Alo.

Police recovered the bodies of Jahanara Begum Mukta, 45, her son Kazi Muhib Hassan, 28, and daughter Taspia Sultana, 22, from their one-storey building at Moinertek in Uttarkhan on Sunday with separate notes next to the bodies.

Officer-in-charge of Uttarkhan police station, Helal Uddin, confirmed recovering a suicide note next to Muhib’s body that read, "Nobody is responsible for our deaths. We did it due to negligence of our relatives."

Another note read, "Let our property be donated to charitable organisations."

However, additional deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Uttara zone, Hafizur Rahman, said it was not clear to them whether it was an incident of suicide or murder.

According to the relatives of the victims and neighbours, the family started living in the Uttarkhan rented house from 7 May (first Ramadan). They came here from Bhairab's Jagannathpur to build their house in a land in Fakirertek bought by Jahanara's father.

Shihabul Islam, Jahanara's brother-in-law, told Prothom Alo, "The family had no enmity with others. The only problem they had was Muhib's unemployment and mentally challenged Taspia."

According to the family's relatives, Jahanara's husband, Iqbal Hossain, was a manager of an organisation. He died in 2016 following a cardiac arrest.

After his death, Jahanara started living in a rented house in the Dhaka Cantonment area with her son and daughter. The family shifted to a rented house in Bhairab two months ago. From there, they moved to Uttarkhan on 5 May.

Muhib tried to build a house in his father's land in Bhairab but could not do so as their ancestral properties were not allotted, said Sarwar Malik, landlord of the Bhairab house where they had stayed for a short period of time.