Dhaka/New Delhi/Ajeet Kumar: In a major twist in the brutal killing of a Hindu family of four in Bangladesh’s Rangpur, a video of a mortuary attendant who assisted with the autopsies claimed that traces of Siemens were found on the bodies of both mother and daughter.
Earlier last week, a retired Hindu school teacher along with his wife and two children were allegedly killed at their residence in Bangladesh's Rangpur city. The deceased were identified as Ganapati Chakraborty, 65, Pritilata Chakraborty, 50, Agami Chakraborty Prarthi, 23, and Priyam Chakraborty, 12.
Mortuary attendant makes wild claims
Since the cold-blooded murder of the family, several claims were made by the victim’s family, but this time, Jatin Roy, the mortuary attendant, made the claim in a video that circulated on social media on Tuesday. In the video, Jatin said he saw material coming out of the bodies of Pritilata Chakraborty and her daughter, Parthi Chakraborty Agami, which he believed looked like semen.
“The doctor told me to check whether anything was there. I saw something coming out that looked like semen. Then he told me to preserve it, so I preserved it,” The Daily Star quoted Jatin as saying in the video. He said the doctor had instructed him to collect a vaginal swab.
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“When it came out, the doctor said it was a vaginal swab and told me to take it out. I took it out. I preserved what came out from the girl, which I thought was semen. I also saw the girl’s mother; a little swab-like material came out from her as well,” he said.
Doctor says tests found no sperm
According to Bablu Kumar Biswas, assistant professor of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Rangpur Medical College and the doctor who conducted the autopsies, samples were collected because of suspicions that the two women may have been sexually assaulted.
“We had our suspicions, whether there had been rape and whether there was any sperm. We were instructed to collect a swab, and he [the mortuary attendant] collected it,” Bablu said.
As per Biswas, the material observed by the attendant appeared to him to resemble something coming from the swab. However, later, the professor claimed that the samples were preserved and sent to the microbiology laboratory for examination. “The report came back negative. No sperm was found. The autopsy report is ready,” the doctor said.
Two cousins arrested in the brutal killing
The police have detained two men, identified as Mughdho and Siddhartha, for their involvement in the killings. They are cousins. According to the report, the duo allegedly entered the rooftop of Chakraborty's house through a neighbouring building and took the drug yaba there on Thursday night, Rangpur Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mohammad Abdul Mabud said in a media briefing on Sunday.
According to the official, Ganapati Chakraborty went to the rooftop after hearing noises and questioned the two men about their presence there. To avoid being exposed, the suspects strangled him with a gamchha (thin cotton towel) he had been carrying on his shoulder, police said. Hearing the noise, his wife went upstairs. The suspects allegedly strangled her with a piece of cloth on the staircase, the official said.
The couple's daughter and son were also killed during the incident, police said. The bodies of the four family members were recovered from their locked house in the Daspara area of Rangpur city around 11:30 pm on Friday. The police said the family had no known disputes or enmity with anyone.
Incidents may increase this puja season
Reacting to the incident, Pratim Ranjan Bose, a columnist, asserted that relations between India and Bangladesh may become critical over the next few months. The columnist dubbed the incident an alarm before the commencement of the Hindu festival season. According to Bose, incidents targeting Hindus rise selectively during the puja season, and he speculated that such occurrences would peak this year.
“All available information indicates that Jihadi factories have revived substantially over the last two years. The incumbent BNP administration is an extension of the Yunus regime, and no counterterrorism initiative is expected from them,” he noted