House help tortured to death: Woman gives confessional statement

Roksana Parvin, who was arrested yesterday in connection with a case for torturing a 12-year-old house help to death in Mohammadpur area of Dhaka, gave confessional statement before a magistrate today.

“I tortured Jannati Akter as she failed to do household works properly on Wednesday, that led to her death,” Roksana said in her confessional statement.  

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Yasmin Ara recorded the statement of Roksana, wife of an engineer of Water Development Board (WDB), under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 (CrPC), after Abdul Alim, inspector of Mohammadpur Police Station, produced him to the magistrate this afternoon.

Roksana confessed that she beat up Jannati and confined her in a bathroom and found Jannati dead when she opened the door of the bathroom early Wednesday,” court and police sources said.

During a primary interrogation yesterday, the arrestee also told police that she tortured Jannati before her death.

Police arrested Roksana from Mohammadpur area following a case filed by the victim’s father Janu Mollah with Mohammadpur Police Station yesterday.

Police is now looking for Roksana’s husband Sayed Ahmed who went into hiding after filing of the case.

On Wednesday around 12:30am, the employer took Jannati to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital (SSMCH) in an unconscious state where doctors declared her dead on arrival and informed police, according to GG Biswas, officer-in-charge of the police station.

Professor Selim Reza, head of forensic department of SSMC, conducted the autopsy and after the autopsy, told The Daily Star that they found injury marks on victim’s body and suspected that Jannati she might have died from internal bleeding.

Jannati had been working as Roksana’s house help for the last three years.