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Domestic aide Ayesha Akhter has given a confessional statement to the court in connection with the murder of a mother and her teenage daughter in Dhaka’s Mohammadpur, after her husband confessed earlier.
Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Jashita Islam recorded her confessional statement following an application by the investigation officer.
Police arrested key suspect Ayesha and her husband, identified only as Rabbi, on Dec 10 around 12:30pm from her aunt-in-law’s house in Nalchity Upazila of Jhalakathi.
The following day, the court ordered six days of questioning in police custody for Ayesha and three days for Rabby.
Rabby gave a confessional statement in court on Sunday following his police interrogation.
After Ayesha’s six-day remand ended on Wednesday, Mohammadpur Police Sub-Inspector Shahidul Osman Masum produced her in court.
As she agreed to make a statement, police applied to have it recorded. The court later sent her to jail, Prosecution Police Sub-Inspector Mizanur Rahman said.
The double murder took place on Dec 8, when 48-year-old Laila Afroze and her 15-year-old daughter Nafisa Lawal Binte Aziz were found dead with their throats slit at their home.
CCTV footage shows only her entering and leaving the apartment before and after the killings.
Laila’s husband Azizul Islam filed a case with Mohammadpur Police on the night of the incident. Police announced the arrest of Ayesha and her husband two days later.
Azizul, the plaintiff in the case, is a physics teacher at Sunbeams School.
He had been living in the Mohammadpur flat with his wife and their only daughter for about 13 years. Their village home is in Natore.
On the day of the incident, Azizul left home in the morning as usual for school.
He returned earlier than usual because exams were being held.
Around 11am, he found the bodies of his wife and daughter.
Hearing his screams, neighbours gathered and informed police.
Police said CCTV footage shows Ayesha, aged around 20, entering the flat at 7:51am wearing a burqa and leaving at 9:36am wearing a school uniform that belonged to ninth-grader Nafisa.
After the killings, police questioned the building’s doorman, identified only as Khalek.
He told investigators that he had sent the young woman to the flat when she came to the house for work four days earlier, adding that she was not known to him.
Based on CCTV footage and information obtained from the doorman, police said Khalek allowed Ayesha to enter the building naturally when she arrived after 7am. When she left wearing a school uniform and a face mask, he, however, failed to recognise her.
The court has ordered police to submit the investigation report by Jan 13.