Police arrest 3 over 5-year-old's killing in Patiya; cite land dispute
Ransom note allegedly planted to frame land-dispute rival.
Police have arrested three people, including a 19-year-old woman and her parents, over the killing of a five-year-old boy in Chattogram's Patiya, alleging that he was killed and then buried to implicate a rival in a longstanding land dispute.
The victim, Md Zayan, the only child of local garage owner Mohammad Shahjahan and a student of a Nurani madrasa, went missing around noon on Tuesday while playing in front of his home in South Gobindar Khil area of Patiya municipality.
Chattogram Superintendent of Police Md Masud Alam disclosed the arrests and preliminary investigation findings at a press conference at the district police superintendent's office at 3:30pm today (18 June).
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After Zayan could not be found, his father filed a general diary with Patiya Police Station. Later that day, a handwritten note demanding Tk3 lakh in ransom and containing threats was found on a bed inside Zayan's home.
Patiya Police Station and the Chattogram District Detective Branch jointly launched an investigation, examining the note's handwriting, CCTV footage, other evidence and intelligence inputs, police said.
Police said the handwriting on the note matched that of Sadia Sultana Niha, 19. During questioning, she gave information that led investigators to Zayan's body.
Based on her information, police recovered the body at about 3:20am yesterday from a drain-side rubbish mound behind the suspects' house.
Police said the body had been placed in a sack and buried under the rubbish. They alleged that Niha took the help of her parents, Saifuddin and Shanu Akter, to conceal the body after the killing.
Patiya Police Station Officer-in-Charge Ziaul Haque told TBS that Saifuddin had a longstanding land dispute with a neighbouring paternal cousin. Police believe the killing was intended to implicate the cousin, he said.
According to police, the handwritten note was left at Zayan's home to make the killing appear to be an abduction for ransom.
Zayan's father filed a murder case with Patiya Police Station yesterday afternoon, naming Niha, Saifuddin and Shanu Akter as accused, Ziaul Haque said. The case also names two or three unidentified people as accused.
After preparing an inquest report, police sent the body to the Chattogram Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy.
Police said they were investigating whether anyone else was involved or whether there was any other motive behind the killing.
