A twenty-one-year-old man has been murdered in Tongi, Gazipur, after being lured to the industrial hub with the false promise of employment. Police have arrested one of the victim’s close acquaintances, thirty-year-old Mazharul Islam Mithu, in connection with the crime. Acting on details extracted during Mithu’s interrogation, law enforcement officers recovered the decomposed body from an abandoned drainage culvert on the premises of the Bishwa Ijtema ground.
The deceased has been identified as Akash Sardar, son of Md Karim Sardar from Chandpur village under Faridpur Kotwali Police Station. The principal suspect, Mithu, hails from Nazirpur village in Sonargaon Upazila, Narayanganj. Both men had previously worked together overseas as migrant labourers in Cambodia.
According to investigative findings and the formal complaint, Akash and Mithu had travelled to Cambodia approximately two and a half years ago through a local recruiter named Apu Mia, based in Sonargaon. The pair returned to Bangladesh roughly three months ago. Upon his return, Akash struggled to secure steady work and remained unemployed. Exploiting his vulnerability, Mithu reached out to him with the prospect of a lucrative job opportunity, convincing him to travel to Sonargaon on 27 July.
The primary case statement details that once Akash arrived, he was abducted and transported to Tongi. Later that evening, around 7:00 PM, an unidentified associate named Suman contacted Akash’s wife, Jerin, via a WhatsApp voice call, stating that her husband was being held captive. Immediately following the exchange, Akash’s mobile telephone went dead. After desperate searches across multiple districts proved futile, the victim’s father lodged an abduction case with Faridpur Kotwali Police Station. The complaint named Mithu, Apu Mia, and Suman Mia alongside two to three unidentified accomplices.
The breakthrough came when a specialist unit from the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB-1) raided a hideout in the Tongi West Police Station area on 23 August, apprehending Mithu.
Under sustained questioning by investigators, Mithu confessed to the murder and pinpointed the exact disposal site. On Monday morning, police teams recovered the decomposed remains from a disused drain adjacent to toilet block number 21 on the Ijtema grounds.
Inspector (Investigation) Md Yanur Rahman of Tongi West Police Station confirmed that the body has been transferred to the Gazipur Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College Hospital morgue for a comprehensive post-mortem examination. Further legal proceedings and efforts to capture the remaining suspects are underway.
