Man kills 3 daughters

In a horrific incident, a father allegedly killed his three minor daughters at Chowdhurypara village of Badarkhali in Cox's Bazar early yesterday.

Abdul Gani slit the throats of Ayesha Siddiqua Champa, 11; Shiru Jannat Sheuli, 9; and one-and-a-half-year-old Sharaban Tahura Baily while they were sleeping around 2:30am, according to police and relatives.

Gani, a rickshaw puller by profession, fled home after committing the heinous homicides, said the victims' mother Fatema Begum, who suspects that her husband's "extramarital affair" might have led to the murder.

The couple had four children. Their eldest child Mohammad Rifat, 14, stays with his maternal grandparents who live close by.

Fatema's elder brother Asgar Ali said Gani had phoned him around 3:00am and asked him to inquire about his sister and nieces. "Saying only this, he [Gani] hung up the phone."

Asgar immediately rushed to the Gani's house and found the bodies of his nieces in a pool of blood.

Fatema, married to Gani for 16 years, claimed to police that her husband has been involved in an extramarital relationship with his elder brother's wife for the last five years. They would often have fights over this, she said.

Locals were aware of this Gani's illicit relations and the resultant discontent between the couple, and tried to solve it through village arbitration several times.

"But Gani is very arrogant and never obeyed the verdict of arbitration," said local union parishad member Khairul Bashar.

Even three days before the incident, an arbitration was held over the same issue but failed to fetch any solution. After that Fatema started staying at a neighbour's house at night.

This left the three daughters completely at the mercy of their father, Fatema said.

Senior Assistant Superintendent Masud Alam of Cox's Bazar police thinks the murders were cold-blooded as Gani was neither mentally imbalanced nor an addict.

Officer-in-Charge Pravash Chandra Dhar of Chakaria Police Station said no case in this connection was filed till yesterday afternoon. If the family members do not file any case, police will do it of their own, he said.