Mohammadpur mother-daughter murder: Police yet to identify anyone

The police have not yet been able to identify anyone in connection with the murder of a mother and daughter in Mohammadpur, Dhaka.

Mohammadpur police station’s officer-in-charge (OC), Mejbah Uddin, said that they have not even been able to determine the name or identity of the household domestic worker, who is the main suspect in the killings.

Police recovered the bloodied bodies of the mother and daughter from a flat in a multi-storey building in Mohammadpur around midday on Monday.

They were Laila Afroz, 48, and her daughter Nafisa Nawal Binte Aziz, 15. Nafisa was a ninth-grade student at Mohammadpur Preparatory School. Her father, Azizul Islam, is a teacher at a school in the capital.

Mohammadpur Police Station’s OC, Mejbah Uddin, told Prothom Alo that the identity of the domestic worker has still not been determined around 11:15am today, Tuesday. The police are continuing their efforts.

Police believe that the 20-year-old domestic worker was involved in the killings. She has been on the run since the incident.

CCTV footage from the building shows that the domestic worker arrived at the apartment wearing a burqa. When she left, however, she was wearing the school uniform of the victim, Nafisa.

Nafisa had multiple deep wounds on her neck, and Laila had numerous injury marks on her body. Police suspect that the mother and daughter were attacked with a sharp weapon by someone wearing gloves.

Some items in one of the apartment’s wardrobes were found scattered. Police said on Monday that a security guard of the building, named Md Khalek, had been detained for questioning in connection with the incident.

According to family sources, Azizul Islam had gone to school in the morning. When he returned home around 11:30am, he found the bodies of his wife and daughter.

Azizul Islam said that he had hired the domestic worker four days earlier through the building’s caretaker and security guards.

Azizul said, “I asked the girl (the domestic worker) for her identity details and phone number. But she said that her parents had died in a fire and that she, too, had been burned. She used that as a reason not to give any identity information or phone number.”