Police recovered the bodies of five people, including a woman, from four separate areas of the capital on Monday (14 September). The bodies were found in Shahbagh, Motijheel, Jatrabari and Kamrangirchar between the morning and afternoon.
The identities of the five deceased were not immediately known. Police said all five appeared to have been living on the streets. Their exact causes of death, however, had not been established at the time of the recoveries.
All five bodies were sent to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital mortuary for post-mortem examinations. The examinations are expected to help determine the circumstances and causes of the deaths, particularly where illness has been cited as a preliminary possibility.
In Jatrabari, police recovered the body of a man believed to be around 45 years old from the Shonir Akhra area on Monday. Local residents informed police after discovering the body. Sub-Inspector Md Asaduzzaman Jewel went to the area and recovered it before sending it to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital mortuary for examination.
A separate incident took place in Motijheel that morning. Passers-by found a man, estimated to be around 50 years old, lying on a road opposite Notre Dame College. They rescued him and took him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment. He subsequently died while receiving medical care. His identity was not immediately established.
Two deaths were also reported in the Shahbagh police station area on the same day. The body of a woman, believed to be about 30 years old, was recovered from an area beside Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Around the same age, a man’s body was found near the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.
Shahbagh police Sub-Inspector Bijoy Mondal recovered the two bodies after being informed by local residents. According to the officer, both individuals appeared to have been living on the streets. He said they were initially believed to have died from illness. That assessment remains preliminary, with the post-mortem examinations expected to provide further evidence.
In another incident, police recovered the body of a 65-year-old man from the Jaulhati area of Kamrangirchar on Monday morning. Kamrangirchar police duty officer Sub-Inspector Praneshwar Das said local residents alerted police after finding the elderly man. He was also believed to have been living on the streets.
The separate incidents occurred in different parts of Dhaka, and there was no immediate indication that the deaths were connected. Police have not disclosed any information suggesting a common cause or circumstance.
The lack of identification has also made it difficult to establish contact with the families or relatives of the deceased. Police will need to determine their identities before the bodies can be handed over to relatives, if any are located.
For those living on the streets, health problems can become particularly difficult to manage because they may have limited access to regular medical care and stable shelter. However, no such broader conclusion can be drawn from these five cases alone. The circumstances surrounding each death will need to be assessed separately.
At this stage, police have described illness as a preliminary possibility in the two Shahbagh cases, while the circumstances of the other deaths remain subject to examination. The post-mortem reports and subsequent police inquiries are expected to establish more reliable information about how the five people died.
