It was indeed a challenge for the police to identify a killer through pursuing fair investigation for the family who sought justice.
Undeniably, justice prevailed as a police officer showed his loyalty to his professional duties. A believer and determined to uncover the truth, the officer - Sub Inspector Ahsan Ullah of Criminal Investigation Department (CID), pleaded to the judge to let him have a chance to reveal the reality.
This followed when seven of his fellow officers failed to dig deep into the mystery and identify the killer.
His dedication, talent and honesty led to re-opening into the investigation of the puzzling murder case in which Fatema Khatun, a teenager in her final year in high school, was hanged to death.
Fatema, from Joypur village in Pirganj Upazila in Rangpur district, was raped and later murdered to conceal crimes committed by the suspect - Mohammad Hasanur Rahman Tikkha.
Fatema was a meritorious student and had dreams of becoming a doctor to serve her community. Daughter of a poor day labourer, Fatema always spoke of charity works by becoming a physician to serve the sick people.
Despite having hardships, Fatema’s parents - father Md Kalam Miah and mother Sajeda Khatun, were doing their best to facilitate best available education in the village which has few economic opportunities.
Fatema’s dream was shattered seven years ago when her cousin, Mohammad Hasanur Rahman Tikkha, got into illicit relations with her. The secrete love affairs got complicated when Fatema found that she was pregnant.
To end anxiety and continuous mental torture of secretly carrying the baby, Fatema insisted that Tikkha marries her. Anticipating further trouble in the family, Tikkha started to avoid the issue and soon got married, perhaps to show that he already had a happy family life.
Irrespective of the issue of already having a wife, Fatema still pressed for legal recognition of their relations as she was a couple of weeks from delivering the child.
In desperation, Tikkha also played all his cards to betray Fatema and escape being identified for the murder and take responsibilities of the unborn child.
On March 7 in 2014, Tikkha picked up Fatema from her sleep in the early hours and hanged her in a room next to where Fatema and her younger sister Kulsum were sleeping.
After the incident, an Unnatural Death (UD) case was filed with the local Pirganj Police Station. But medical report confirmed that Fatema was strangled to death. The medical report also confirmed that the condition of her pregnancy was more than 40 weeks.
Victim’s father Kamal said, “As my daughter was a very shy girl, it was very difficult to know about her unexpected pregnancy.”
“Even after the medical reports confirmed that she was pregnant and was murdered, we could not provide the investigators with any vital information behind the murder,” he explained.
Victim’s mother, Sajeda, said, “After killing my daughter, Tikkha always maintained a normal social interaction as usual and showed no guilty feelings. He took part in the janzaa prayers of Fatema’s funeral. We could not even imagine that Tikkha himself killed my daughter.”
According to the case documents, the DNA profiles of the victim’s close male relatives and teachers were checked for biological connection with the unborn baby but none matched.
In 2016, local police had requested to hand over the investigation to another agency after their failures to detect the killer.
Later CID high ups assigned Sub Inspector Mizanur Rahaman and later Farhad Ali as new Investigation Officers (IO). Through the court’s order, they examined the DNA profiles of many key suspects. But none were found to be connected with the crime although the killer – Tikkha - always remained within the vicinity of the victim’s thatched home.
The same year (2016??) on May 13 Sub Inspector Ahsan Ullah requested the court to re-examined some new suspects and send for DNA tests which were apparently granted.
SI Ahsan said, “I submissively requested the judge to allow me to conduct DNA test for the last time.”
“I was quite confident that I would expose the killer only if the judge had given me another opportunity to investigate for the last time,” he added.
On October 20 this year, the DNA profile of Tikkha along with six other suspects were examined. At last, a DNA sample of Tikkha matched with the unborn baby of the slain.
Describing the DNA test of Tikkha, SI Ahsan said, “I had escorted Tikkha to CID office for a DNA test. He had repeatedly claimed that he was innocent. But a DNA test later confirmed that he raped and murdered Fatema to destroy the evidence of rape.”
Later Tikkha gave confessional statement before a Rangpur court and admitted that he raped and murdered Fatema.
Milu Miah Biswas, Special Superintendent of CID, who was the supervising officer of the investigation, said, “In total eight investigation officers had investigated into the case. Among them, five were from local police and three were from our CID branch office in Rangpur.”
