A 17-year-old girl who went missing from Maheshpur in Jhenaidah around 18 months ago was allegedly killed following a dispute over marriage, according to police. Her body was later recovered from a secluded area near Pakshi railway station in Ishwardi, Pabna, but was buried as unidentified after authorities failed to establish her identity.
The victim, Nizhum Khatun, had gone missing in March 2025. After searching for her without success, her mother filed a general diary (GD) at Maheshpur Police Station.
The case subsequently came under investigation by the Jhenaidah District Police Cyber Crime Investigation Cell. After a prolonged investigation, police said they uncovered information linking Nizhum’s disappearance to her alleged killing and identified Mashrikul Zim, 23, as the suspect.
According to the police account, Nizhum and Zim were in a romantic relationship. On 13 March 2025, Zim allegedly took Nizhum from Jhenaidah to the Pakshi railway station area in Ishwardi, Pabna, telling her that they were going out.
Police said the two later had a disagreement over marriage. During the dispute, Zim allegedly assaulted Nizhum, leaving her unconscious. He then allegedly carried her to a secluded wooded area beside the railway tracks and strangled her with her scarf.
Four days later, on 17 March, Ishwardi Police recovered the partially decomposed body of an unidentified teenage girl from an isolated location near Pakshi railway station. As her identity could not be established, the body was sent for a post-mortem examination and later buried with assistance from Anjuman Mufidul Islam in Pabna.
An unnatural death case was subsequently filed at Ishwardi Police Station in connection with the recovery of the unidentified body.
Meanwhile, investigators in Jhenaidah continued looking into Nizhum’s disappearance. The Cyber Crime Investigation Cell examined information linked to the missing-person case and eventually found alleged connections between Zim and the disappearance, police said.
Zim was arrested after investigators identified his alleged involvement. Police said that during the investigation, information emerged connecting him with the circumstances surrounding Nizhum’s death and the unidentified body recovered from Pakshi.
He later appeared before a court in Jhenaidah and, according to police, gave a confessional statement describing the alleged killing of Nizhum. The statement is part of the ongoing judicial proceedings, and the allegations against him remain subject to determination through the legal process.
Jhenaidah Superintendent of Police Ashis Bin Hasan said the case had been solved through a coordinated investigation involving the police and the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell. The suspect was arrested after investigators established his alleged involvement, he said.
The court subsequently ordered that Zim be sent to jail.
The case has brought renewed attention to the difficulty of identifying bodies recovered without documents or other reliable identifying information. In this instance, police say a body buried as unidentified was eventually linked to a teenage girl whose family had been searching for her for about 18 months.
The investigation has now moved into the judicial phase, with the suspect in custody and further legal proceedings expected to determine the circumstances and responsibility surrounding Nizhum’s death.
