Engineer found dead a day after going missing

Police recovered the body of a marine engineer from an under-construction building in the city's Sukrabad area on Sunday night, a day after he had gone missing.

A resident of Uttara, victim Rafiqul Hasan Rimon was a captain of a foreign ship, said his family members.

According to law enforcers, the body of the 42-year-old was found on the ground floor of the 10-storey building. Injury marks on the body suggested that he was killed.

Police were probing family feud, enmity over the possession of an apartment and Rafiqul's alleged extramarital affair with a woman as motives behind the murder, said OC Atiqur Rahman of New Market Police Station.

Victim's relatives said Rafiqul recently decided to divorce his wife Kaniz Fatema.

Talking to The Daily Star, victim's father Khalil Ullah said his son sent his two children to their mother's parental home on Elephant Road through his friend Ripon around 7:50pm on Saturday after celebrating the Victory Day with them.

Around 9:11pm, Rafiqul told her cousin Mitu over the phone that he was at Metro Shopping Mall in Dhanmondi, according to a general diary filed by Khalil with New Market Police Station on Sunday afternoon.

The GD said though his phone was on, nobody responded to calls from his relatives and friends on Saturday night.

Around 9:00pm on Sunday, local chicken trader Mohammad Sohel found the victim's partially damaged iPhone in the basement of the building when he went to keep his chickens there.

Sohag claimed he inserted the iPhone's SIM card into his phone so that he could indentify its owner and hand it over to him.

“Around 30 minutes later, I received a call. Knowing about the owner of the phone, I asked the caller to come to the building,” he told The Daily Star.

Around midnight, the victim's relatives and friends reached Sukrabad and spotted the body on the ground floor of the building.

This correspondent yesterday talked to at least 20 people at nearby buildings and shops. They all said they heard nothing suspicious on Saturday and Sunday.

Requesting anonymity, they alleged that many young people used to gather at the building at night to take drugs.  

Victim's father Khalil Ullah yesterday filed a murder case with New Market Police Station accusing some unidentified people of killing his son. He suspected that his distant grandson Sajedul Karim Rony might have a hand in the murder.

Khalil said Sajedul had been forcefully holding the possession of his son's apartment in the capital's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar and a case was pending with the court in this regard. 

“I don't want the police to harass someone, but I want justice for the killing.”

Sajedul's wife Momtaz Moina, however, said they paid Tk 10 lakh out of Tk 22 lakh, the total price of the flat, to Rafiqul, but he denied receiving any money.

The inquest report of the body, prepared by Sub-Inspector Mahbubur Rahman, cited that the face of the victim turned blackish.

There were bruises in the right side of the victim's face, several fingers and the right elbow. There were deep scratch marks in his back and chest, it added. 

Law enforcers picked up Rafiqul Islam, the caretaker of the building, and chicken trader Sohel for interrogation. They also quizzed victim's wife Kaniz and were grilling Sajedul as a suspect.

Victim's father-in-law Kamrul Islam, a retired teacher of Govt Laboratory High School, said the couple got married in 2006. Their relationship started to crumble four years ago when Rafiqul began an affair with a girl and started taking drugs, he alleged.

Rafiqul sent his wife to her father's house six months back and both were preparing to be separated. It was decided in a family arbitration that the couple's two children would stay with their mother and visit their father at times, said Kamrul.

An autopsy was carried out on the body at Dhaka Medical College yesterday. Police later handed over the body to the victim's family members.