A woman and her two children were murdered and left inside a house in Dhaka's Dakshinkhan, which the killer had locked from outside, police believe.

Police recovered the bodies in the evening today and think, because of the decomposition of the bodies, that the murders took place three to four days ago.

The deceased were identified as Munni Begum, 37, and her son Farhan Uddin, 12, and daughter Laiva Bhuiyan, 3, said Nabid Kamal Shaibal, deputy commissioner (Uttara Division) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Sub-inspector Maqsudul Kabir of Dakshinkhan Police Station said a police team rushed to the house after learning of the incident around 5:30pm and recovered the bodies of the deceased.

The woman had a wound that indicated that she was hit with a blunt, heavy object while the children are suspected to have been strangled to death, police said.

After failing to reach the victims on the phone, a relative had come to the house in the afternoon and found the door locked from inside. After detecting a bad odour from the flat, he informed police, who recovered the bodies, police said.

The woman's husband, Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone (T&T) employee Raqib Uddin Bhuiyan, has been missing since the incident.