Tajmin murder: Clothes to undergo DNA tests to determine if she was raped

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is set to conduct forensic DNA tests on the clothes of Jannatul Tajmin, a 15-year-old schoolgirl murdered in Cumilla, as investigators seek to determine whether she was raped before her death.

Biological swab samples collected during her autopsy, along with the clothes she was wearing, will be sent to the CID's forensic DNA laboratory in Dhaka for testing. Her mobile phone will also be examined.

Abdullah Al Faruk, a sub-inspector of Lalmai Police Station and the former investigation officer in the case, said today (12 October) that an application had been filed with the court seeking permission to send the evidence for laboratory testing.

According to police, the accused CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver, Md Sumon Mia, raped Tajmin before killing her. He took an iPhone from her vanity bag after the murder, abandoned his own auto-rickshaw and fled in another vehicle.

Sumon confessed in a court statement to raping and killing the girl.

Meanwhile, Cox's Bazar police arrested another accused, a hotel employee Riaz Uddin Raju, also known as Raju Chowdhury, 20, yesterday night. Tajmin had reportedly stayed with him on the day before the incident.

Tajmin got off a bus at Paduar Bazar Bishwa Road in Cumilla around midnight on 7 October. A team of Cumilla Detective Branch police left Cox's Bazar with Raju this morning to bring him to Cumilla for questioning.

Lalmai Police Station Officer-in-Charge Mizanur Rahman declined to comment on Raju's transfer. Cumilla Superintendent of Police Anisuzzaman also declined to provide further details.

Tajmin was murdered on 7 October while returning home in Lalmai upazila.

Police recovered her body the following morning from a ridge in a paddy field in the Uttarpara area of Bhorajagotpur village.

Sumon, 35, was arrested in connection with the murder and is being held at Cumilla jail.