Parents, aunt brought in for quizzing

The Rapid Action Battalion yesterday picked up the parents and a relative of the two siblings, two days after their suspected murder in the capital's Banasree area.

A Rab-3 team from Dhaka went to Iqbalpur of Jamalpur, where the children were buried on Tuesday night, and headed back around 11:10am taking with them Mohammad Amanullah and Mahfuza Malek Jasmine and the children's maternal aunt Afroza Malek Nila.

Before that, the Rab men had interrogated them for about a couple of hours at the Iqbalpur house of Jasmin's parents, said Solaiman, uncle of the two siblings.

Earlier, a team of Rab-14 stayed at the house from 8:00pm to 11:00pm on Tuesday night, said Jasim Uddin, commander of the Rab unit's Jamalpur camp.

He said they got "some information" from the parents but refused to disclose those "for the sake of investigation".

Once back to Dhaka, the three would be taken to the Banasree flat, where the two kids were found "unconscious" before being declared dead on Monday, to see if they can recall something "vital" for the investigation, the Rab official added.

Asked if the family members were detained, Rab's Media Wing Director Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan avoided a direct reply and referred to a text message earlier sent to The Daily Star.

A notice mourning the death of Alvi Aman is hung on a gate of Holy Crescent International School, where the boy studied. Photo: Star

The message states the three were brought to Dhaka for "collecting information".

Lt Col Khandaker Golam Sarwar, Rab-3 commanding officer, said there was "no question of detaining the family members" as nothing suspicious about them was found yet.

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 the children died from food poisoning before autopsy suggested that the victims might have been murdered. There were bruises on both the bodies.

A day later, Rab picked up five people -- a female tutor of Nusrat, two relatives and two security guards of the building -- for questioning.

They were yet to be released.

A Rab official, seeking anonymity, said the five would be made to sit with the parents face-to-face for questioning.

Sabina Yasmin, wife of one of the detained security guards, alleged she had tried several times to contact her husband Pintu Mandal.

"Whenever I called on his mobile phone, someone from the other end rejected it."

Sabina, who lives on the ground floor of the building, said the children's parents returned to the flat around 1:00am on Tuesday after the incident.

"They were visibly distressed. They were crying inconsolably.

"There were other relatives too but none seemed to suspect that the children could have been murdered. Everyone was talking about food poisoning," she added.

The family initially claimed that the children had died after eating food brought from a local Chinese restaurant a day earlier.

After autopsies on the bodies, doctors on Tuesday said their primary findings suggested that the children might have been murdered.

Mehedi Masud, a teacher at Holly Crescent School where Alvi studied, said the boy was quiet in nature.

"He would usually sit silent in the classroom. But he would seldom miss school."

On Sunday when Alvi for the last time went to school, he showed the teacher a bandaged finger on the left hand but did not say how he received the injury, Masud told The Daily Star.

A case was yet to be filed over the matter, said Rafiqul Islam, officer-in-charge of Rampura Police Station.

If the family doesn't lodge any case, the police will file one, the OC said, adding that they too will interrogate those picked up by the Rab following the incident.

Meanwhile, a Dhaka court yesterday ordered police to send samples of the leftover food and water for chemical test and other samples collected from the scene for DNA profiling.

Metropolitan Magistrate Kazi Kamrul Islam passed the order after Sub-inspector Shoumen Kumar Barua of Rampura Police Station appeared before the court with the petition, said court sources.

The photo of Nusrat and Alvi published in this newspaper yesterday was collected from the Facebook page of their father Amanullah.