In a tragedy that has sent shockwaves through the capital, the vibrant life of eight-year-old Ramisa was cruelly extinguished on Tuesday morning in an act of unimaginable violence.
What began as a routine school morning for a family in Mirpur 11, descended into a nightmare that has left a community in mourning and a father pleading for justice.
The humanitarian cost of the crime is most poignantly felt in the final moments of Ramisa’s morning. Her mother, performing the universal ritual of preparing a child for school, found herself searching a building that should have been a sanctuary.
The simple, domestic sight of Ramisa’s shoes sitting outside the door of a neighbour’s flat became the first omen of the horror to follow.
When police from Pallabi Police Station finally entered the residence of Sohel Rana, 32, they were met with a scene that defied humanity. The young girl had been raped and decapitated, her remains hidden under a bed and within a bathroom bucket.
The sheer brutality of the act – committed by a neighbour who lived alongside the family on the third floor – has shattered the sense of security held by the residents.
The victim’s father, Abdul Hannan Molla, spoke through tears of the void left in his family. “I do not know if my daughter went to that monster’s house on her own or if he lured her there,” he said, reflecting the agony of a parent grappling with the “how” and “why” of such a loss.
His demand for the death penalty for the culprit echoes the collective grief of the hundreds of locals who gathered outside the home, many of whom questioned how the suspect’s wife, Swapna, could remain in the flat and fail to intervene.
While the main suspect, Sohel – a rickshaw painter – was eventually apprehended in Fatullah, Narayanganj after fleeing through a third-floor window, the arrest offers little comfort to a community processing the violation of one of its most vulnerable members.
As the investigation continues with the involvement of the CID’s Forensic Unit and Special Branch, the focus remains on the stolen future of a child who was simply waiting to go to school.
For the people of Pallabi, the case is not just a police matter, but a profound loss of innocence that has left a permanent scar on the neighbourhood.
