A woman and her daughter were found dead under suspicious circumstances in their home in Cumilla on Tuesday morning, with authorities reporting that the husband has fled the scene.
The victims, identified as 35-year-old Zaheda Akhter and her 12-year-old daughter Fatema, were recovered from a flat near the Cumilla-Sylhet Highway in Burichang Upazila of Cumilla.
Zaheda originally hailed from Chhagalnaiya of Feni district used to work at a local shoe factory named Jihan Footwear in Cumilla and her husband, identified as Mir Hossain, a construction worker, is currently missing, and police suspect his involvement in the deaths.
Mohammad Azizul Haque, officer-in-charge of the local police station, said being informed they recovered the bodies from the flat in a building named ‘Chhatar Villa’ in Rampur area of the upazila in the morning.
According to the house owner Abul Khayer, Zaheda and her husband had rented the flat on Jul 12. The foreman of Zaheda’s factory, Ibrahim, called him over phone around midnight on Monday, and informed about the deaths and requested him to stop Mir from escaping.
But when he went upstairs, he saw Mir jumping off the roof and fled the house following the incident.
Later, he found Zaheda and her daughter lying inside the room and Zaheda’s another daughter and her mother-in-law were in the adjacent room.
The bodies of Zaheda and her daughter have been sent to the morgue for autopsy, OC Azizul said, adding that the cause of death would be determined after receiving the report.