As the country reels in anger and heartbreak over the rape and murder of seven-year-old Ramisa, another devastated father travelled from Brahmanbaria to the schoolgirl’s home in Dhaka’s Pallabi, carrying the weight of a tragedy painfully similar to his own.
Just a month and a half ago, his six-year-old daughter was also raped and murdered.
Abdur Rahman, a pseudonym used to protect the family’s identity, said he could no longer stay away after watching news of the Pallabi killing. The grief, he said, felt hauntingly familiar.
“The emptiness inside a father after losing a daughter like this cannot be explained,” he said quietly while standing outside Ramisa’s home.
Rahman’s daughter went missing on 15 April. Two days later, her body, wrapped in a sack, was recovered from an open field in Brahmanbaria.
More than six weeks later, he says, sleep still escapes him.
“It’s been a month and a half since my child died, and I still cannot sleep,” he said. “After hearing about this child, I felt I had to meet her parents. Their child suffered the same fate.”
The visit came as public outrage over the Pallabi case spread across the country, triggering protests and renewed demands for justice.
During a visit to Ramisa’s family Thursday night, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman assured them of speedy justice. Home Minister Salah Uddin Ahmed also said the charge sheet in the Ramisa murder case would be submitted to court by Sunday afternoon.
But Rahman says his own daughter’s case remains stuck in limbo.
“The case has been filed and the investigation is ongoing,” he said. “But even after a month and a half, there is no resolution. The charge sheet has not been filed and the autopsy report has still not arrived.”
Legal experts warn that such delays can seriously weaken rape and murder investigations.
Criminal law specialist Mizanur Rahman Khan said crucial forensic evidence often disappears within hours.
“In rape cases, evidence on the victim’s body can usually be effectively identified for only up to 24 hours,” he told TIMES. “Delays in filing the case and delays in medical examinations destroy important evidence.”
Investigators in the Brahmanbaria case say the accused, Ishaq Mia, has confessed to the crime during police interrogation.
According to sources involved in the investigation, the suspect told police he panicked after the child threatened to tell her mother. He allegedly confessed to strangling her and covering her mouth to silence her cries.
But Mizanur Rahman Khan warned that a confession alone is not enough to secure a conviction.
“No one can be convicted solely on the basis of a confession under Section 164,” he said. “If the confession does not match the medical findings, it can lose its admissibility in court.”
Questions also remain over why the post-mortem report in the Brahmanbaria case has yet to be completed.
Brahmanbaria PBI Superintendent of Police Mohammad Shakhawat Hossain said the report had still not arrived when he last checked around two weeks ago.
Ratan Kumar Dhali, superintendent of Brahmanbaria’s 250-bed General Hospital, said he could not confirm the status of the report without reviewing official documents.
Mizanur Rahman Khan said such delays are common in Bangladesh’s criminal justice system.
Sometimes, he said, forensic reports are delayed because laboratories lack chemicals. At other times, doctors are on leave or administrative processes slow down during weekends.
But he believes the deeper crisis lies in a “slow-moving” investigation system that still lacks modern technology and efficiency.
According to him, DNA reports often take six months to a year to arrive, while medical reports can take weeks or even months.
“Corruption has crept into every corner of the country,” he alleged.
He claimed that investigators are sometimes influenced while preparing reports and that evidence which should be examined immediately is often left untouched for months or years, weakening cases before they reach court.
The lawyer also criticised the pace of the judiciary, saying many cases take five to six years to complete because of a shortage of judges.
Even after a lower court issues a death sentence, the mandatory appeal and death reference procedures in the High Court can stretch on for years. Preparing the necessary “paper book” alone, he said, may take up to a decade.
“The most important stage in a rape and murder case is the initial investigation,” he said. “If the victim dies, there is no opportunity to hear her account. The entire case then depends on surrounding evidence, testimony, medical examinations and DNA reports.”
He added: “Medical examinations and DNA reports are essential in rape and murder cases.”
For Rahman, however, legal procedures and official explanations offer little comfort.
He came to Pallabi not as an activist or politician, but simply as a father who recognised another family’s unbearable pain.
And standing outside the home of another murdered child, he found himself reliving the same nightmare all over again.
