Police have recovered the decomposed body of an auto-rickshaw driver in Bangladesh’s Chapainawabganj district, five days after he went missing with his vehicle. The body of Mohammad Ruman Ali was found in a sugarcane field in the Pithalitola-Puthimari Beel area of Shibganj municipality on Wednesday night, 26 August.
Ruman, the son of Ekramul Haque of Selimabad village in Shibganj upazila, worked as an auto-rickshaw driver.
According to police and family members, Ruman disappeared on the morning of 21 August from the Pailing intersection area of Shibganj while he was with his auto-rickshaw. His family subsequently searched for him in several places but failed to establish his whereabouts.
Two days after his disappearance, on 23 August, Ruman’s wife, Nazma Sultana, filed a complaint at Shibganj Police Station alleging that her husband had been abducted.
The search continued until Wednesday night, when several farmers returning home after finishing work in the fields noticed a body lying inside a sugarcane field. They informed local residents, who then alerted the police.
Officers went to the scene and recovered the body before taking it to the police station. As the body had decomposed, identification was not immediately straightforward. Ruman’s wife later identified him from the clothes he was wearing, along with his belt and sandals.
The discovery came five days after his disappearance and raised further questions about what happened to him after he was last seen with his auto-rickshaw.
Police have arrested three men in connection with the case: Mohammad Wasim, Rafiqul Islam and Omar Faruk. The auto-rickshaw was also recovered, according to the authorities.
The three suspects were subsequently produced before a court. The investigating officer sought permission to question them in custody as part of the investigation. Following a hearing, the court granted three days of remand for each of the three accused.
Police are now examining the circumstances surrounding Ruman’s disappearance, the recovery of his vehicle and the location where his body was found. Investigators are also seeking to establish whether other people were involved in the incident.
Matiur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Shibganj Police Station, confirmed that Ruman’s body had been recovered from a sugarcane field in the Pithalitola-Puthimari Beel area.
He said the body had been sent to the Chapainawabganj District Hospital mortuary for a post-mortem examination. Police are continuing their investigation and conducting operations to arrest anyone else suspected of involvement.
The post-mortem examination is expected to help determine the precise cause of death. Meanwhile, investigators are relying on questioning of the arrested suspects and other evidence to establish the sequence of events that led to Ruman’s disappearance and death.
For Ruman’s family, the five-day search ended with the recovery of his body rather than the news they had hoped for. The investigation remains ongoing, with police working to establish the full circumstances of the case.
