A seven-year-old girl who went missing from her village in Brahmanbaria’s Nabinagar has been found dead, but her mother, who is currently in hospital awaiting childbirth, remains unaware of the tragedy.
The child’s partially decomposed body was recovered from a bushy area near her home two days after she went missing. Police have so far been unable to determine how she died or identify clear evidence pointing to what happened to her.
The incident took place in a village in Nabinagar upazila. According to the family, the girl had been expected to accompany her pregnant mother to her maternal grandparents’ home. However, before her mother left, the child went out of the house carrying a packet of meat.
When the mother reached her father’s house, she found that her daughter had not arrived. Family members subsequently began searching for the girl in and around the village. During the search, the mother’s labour pains intensified and she was admitted to a private hospital in Brahmanbaria district for delivery.
Two days later, the girl’s body was recovered from a bushy area close to the family home. By Tuesday afternoon, the mother was still in hospital and had not been told that her daughter’s body had been found. She continued to believe that the child was missing.
The girl was a student at a madrasa in Nabinagar and was the elder of two sisters. Her father works at a bakery in Dhaka, while the two children lived in the village with their mother.
The condition of the body has made the investigation more difficult. Nabinagar police said the body had partially decomposed, had swollen because of decay and had turned dark around the face. A sandal believed to belong to the child was recovered from the scene.
Rajib Kanti Das, an inspector attached to Nabinagar police, said the area where the body was found was covered with dense vegetation and resembled a secluded wooded spot. As the place was not an obvious location to search, family members had not initially looked there.
Sub-Inspector Mehedi Hasan, who prepared the inquest report, said the decomposition had destroyed or weakened possible evidence. He said investigators had not yet found a clear clue at the scene. Police were considering the possibility that the child may have been killed elsewhere and that her body was later taken to the location, although this remains an initial line of investigation rather than an established finding.
He also said investigators were considering whether the body might have been kept inside a sack before being left at the recovery site.
Brahmanbaria Civil Surgeon Mohammad Mizanur Rahman said significant changes can occur in a body around 48 hours after death. Such changes can include decomposition, swelling and darkening of the face. He said the precise cause of death would have to be determined through a post-mortem examination.
The body has been kept at the mortuary of Brahmanbaria General Hospital for the examination. Police have yet to establish what happened to the child after she left home carrying the packet of meat. The meat has also not been found.
Brahmanbaria Superintendent of Police Shah Md Abdur Rauf said there was no closed-circuit television camera in the area where the body was recovered. Investigators therefore plan to question people who saw the girl after she left home, as well as other residents of the village.
The investigation is now focused on reconstructing the child’s movements between the time she left home and the discovery of her body. Police are also seeking information from local residents that could help establish where she went, who may have encountered her and how she reached the secluded area where the body was eventually found.
The family is awaiting the post-mortem findings, while investigators continue to examine the circumstances surrounding the child’s disappearance and death. For now, the cause of death and the events leading to the recovery of her body remain unresolved.
