A claim hard to believe

The two Banasree siblings were killed by their own mother out of her “concerns about their future”, Rab claimed yesterday, citing primary interrogation.

“She [the mother] feared her kids had no future,” said a press statement by the force.

Mahfuza Malek Jasmine first strangled her daughter Nusrat and then son Alvi at their apartment in the capital on Monday afternoon, Rab Media Wing Director Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan told a press briefing at the force's headquarters.

The mother used her daughter's scarf to strangulate them, after the female tutor of one child left the flat around 5:10pm, said Mufti.

He claimed to have gleaned the information from the mother during primary interrogation when the father was also present.

However, further investigations will reveal if there were any other motives, he added.

Meanwhile, the kids' father filed a murder case against Jasmine last night. The case statement is identical with the Rab version.

However, the statement added that Jasmine never spoke with him of her “worries” about the future of the kids. And after killing them, she tried to commit suicide.

Relatives and experts on social behaviour, however, said the Rab version was unbelievable and that there might be some other motive.

Relatives claimed both the kids were meritorious and had been studying at reputed schools. In addition, the family was financially solvent. So there is no apparent reason for the mother to be worried about their future.

The house owner said the couple always paid their rent on time while neighbours said they had no knowledge that the family was in debt.

Rab officials support this, saying it was a “solvent family living in peace”.

Nusrat Aman Aroni, 14, and her six-year-old brother Alvi Aman were found unconscious at their apartment on Monday afternoon. They were declared dead at Dhaka Medical College Hospital that evening.

It was initially believed that they died from food poisoning before autopsies suggested they might have been murdered. There were bruises on their bodies.

On Wednesday, Rab brought the children's parents and an aunt from their hometown in Jamalpur for quizzing.

It had also picked up five people, including relatives, security guards and the female house tutor, for interrogation.

At the press briefing, Commander Mufti said the two kids had two house tutors. On that day, after the house tutor left, Jasmine asked her daughter to go to the bedroom and take rest. Alvi was already sleeping there.

There was a scuffle during the strangulation and at one point, both mother and daughter fell on the floor, the Rab official claimed.

Sure about Nusrat's death, she killed Alvi in sleep, using the same scarf, he added.

To cover it up, she made up the food-poisoning story and called her husband over the phone, saying the children were sick. She also called her sister, he said.

During primary interrogation, the mother said she was anxious about her children's education. However, she “behaved normally” at the time of quizzing.

Jasmine has a master's in management and taught in a college from 2005-2007. She was serious about her kids' education, Mufti said.

Additional Superintendent of Police Mostaque Ahmed of Rab-3 claimed to have learned that the mother attempted to commit suicide a couple of times in the past. But he did not say why.

RELATIVES, EXPERTS DUMFOUNDED 

Relatives in Jamalpur, where the couple is form, said they did not believe the Rab version of the incident. Jasmine's mother said she was unaware that her daughter ever had any mental disturbance.

She said Jasmine and Amanullah got married in 2002. Jasmine was a teacher in a Jamalpur college for a couple of years, before moving to Dhaka.

Contacted, Prof Nehal Karim, who teaches sociology at Dhaka University, said, “The way I have watched and followed the news since yesterday morning, it seems highly improbable to me that this woman killed her own children without any other motives."