A six-year-old child was found dead in a water-filled pit in Kurigram Sadar upazila on Monday night, around eight hours after going missing from home.
The child’s body was recovered at about 8pm from a village in Bhogdanga Union, according to Kamal Hossain, officer-in-charge of Kurigram Sadar Police Station.
Police said the child disappeared at around noon. After relatives and family members failed to locate the child despite searching several nearby areas, they began making announcements in the locality in an effort to alert residents and seek help.
The search continued throughout the afternoon. Later in the evening, the child’s body was reportedly seen floating in water inside a pit beside a tube well at a neighbour’s house. Local residents subsequently informed the police, who went to the scene and recovered the body.
The circumstances surrounding the child’s death have not yet been established. The discovery has raised questions locally about how the child reached the pit after disappearing and whether the death was accidental or involved any other circumstances. However, police have not confirmed any particular cause of death and said speculation should not be treated as established fact while the investigation is under way.
Kamal Hossain said police had been sent to the scene and that officers were examining the circumstances of the incident.
“If any wrongdoing or involvement of anyone is found behind the incident, legal action will be taken,” he said.
Police have yet to receive a written complaint in connection with the death, the officer added.
Investigators are expected to examine the location where the child was found and gather information from family members, neighbours and others who may have knowledge of the child’s movements before the disappearance. The exact circumstances of the death will become clearer as the investigation progresses.
The incident has caused concern in the local community, particularly because the child was reported missing at midday but was not found until several hours later. Police have so far refrained from drawing conclusions about what happened, stressing that the circumstances remain under investigation.
