police have unraveled the mystery surrounding the murder of a 15-year-old seventh-grader in Cumilla, confirming that auto-rickshaw driver Sumon raped and subsequently strangled her to death.
Cumilla Additional Superintendent of Police Pankaj Barua disclosed the findings during a press conference held at the District Police Superintendent's office at 10:30am on Saturday.
According to police, the girl arrived at Tisha counter in Paduar Bazar Bishwa Road under Cumilla sadar Dakshin upazila from Cox’s Bazar at around 12:30am on October 8. She hired Sumon’s autorickshaw for Tk 300 to reach her rented home in the Racecourse area of the city.
The girl also gave Sumon money to buy bread and bananas. Instead of taking her to the destination, he drove towards Chandpur road, passed through Bijra Bazar in Laksam and returned to Jagatpur in Lalmai upazila, spending around two hours on the journey, the police official said.
When Sumon stopped the vehicle in Jagatpur, the girl asked where they were. After realising that she was not in Racecourse, she got out of the autorickshaw and tried to escape.
Pankaj said that Sumon chased her and attempted to rape her. He strangled her with a towel after raping her there. Sumon, at one point, pressed her head against the ground with his foot to ensure her death, according to the police official.
Sumon allegedly took the girl’s iPhone from her bag and left the bag in the paddy field. He abandoned the autorickshaw at the scene, bathed in a pond near Kachikata Mosque and travelled to Bakhrahat in another hired autorickshaw.
He hid the phone in bushes beside a pond in Bakhrahat before fleeing to Chattogram, the police official said.
Police arrested Sumon in Chattogram on Friday and later recovered the phone from the location he identified.
Earlier, the girl’s body was recovered from a paddy field in Jagatpur village beside the Cumilla-Noakhali regional highway on Thursday.
An abandoned CNG-run autorickshaw was found nearby, and damaged paddy plants across several plots suggested a struggle. The victim’s father filed a murder case against unidentified people with Lalmai police station in this connection on Thursday.
