The Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch (DB) has arrested two people in connection with the death of headteacher Ranjina Parvin, who died after falling from a rickshaw when muggers allegedly snatched her bag in front of the parliament complex’s South Plaza, and has recovered the motorcycle allegedly used in the mugging, along with the deceased’s vanity bag.
DB chief Shafiqul Islam is scheduled to brief the media at 1:45pm today (16 September) at the DMP Media Centre.
The briefing is expected to provide details about the newly arrested suspects, how they were identified, and the evidence recovered from them.
The development comes after the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) had earlier arrested two people along with a motorcycle and claimed that they had been involved in the mugging.
However, questions later emerged over the CCTV footage, the whereabouts of the suspects arrested by RAB, and whether the motorcycle recovered by the agency was actually the one used in the incident.
According to the case file, Ranjina Parvin, the headteacher of Bagbari Girls’ Government Primary School in Gabtoli upazila of Bogura, travelled to Dhaka with her husband early on 29 August for eye treatment.
While they were travelling by rickshaw from Gabtoli to the hospital in Farmgate, a motorcycle carrying alleged muggers approached from behind near parliament; the muggers grabbed the bag Ranjina was carrying.
The forceful pull caused her to fall from the rickshaw onto the road, leaving her with a serious head injury. She was later taken to a hospital, where doctors declared her dead.
The following day, 30 August, RAB-2 arrested Mosharaf Hossain Poni, alias Poni Gazi and his associate Cedric Julian.
At the time, RAB claimed that Poni was a professional mugger and had 13 cases filed against him at different police stations. RAB also recovered a Yamaha R15 motorcycle during the operation.
According to RAB, the motorcycle belonged to a person named Rakib and was in Poni’s possession at the time of the incident. The motorcycle seen in the CCTV footage appeared to be blue, while the motorcycle recovered was white.
The three accused arrested by RAB in the case were subsequently placed on remand by a court. The latest arrests by the DB have now introduced another turn in the investigation.
The relationship between the suspects previously arrested by RAB and those newly arrested by the DB, as well as who was actually riding the motorcycle during the mugging, is expected to become clearer during the DB’s briefing.
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