After the bodies of Nargis Begum and her two sons were recovered in Dhaka’s Dhamrai a year ago, food poisoning was the explanation being offered. For that reason the case was filed as an unnatural death. But after one piece of information came in, a doubt lodged in the investigating officer’s mind. In searching for the answer to that question, the knot of the killings came undone. The woman’s son-in-law, Md Robin, is now an accused facing trial.
Robin, 22, is now under arrest and in jail. He has given a confessional statement to a magistrate. On January 14 the investigating officer in the case, sub-inspector (SI) Monjur Rahman of the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI), submitted a charge sheet to a Dhaka court. The case is now before the Dhaka district and sessions judge’s court for trial.
The charge sheet says Robin, a live-in son-in-law, looked after the family’s decorators’ business at his in-laws’ home. He carried out the killings out of anger at his mother-in-law having sold that business, it says.
The investigating officer, Monjur Rahman, told Prothom Alo that at the start there was no clue in the case. Robin was handling it very cleverly, he said; it was essentially in searching for the answer to a single question that the whole mystery was unravelled.
The detail that raised doubt
On the night of June 2, 2025, the bodies of Nargis, 42 — the wife of the late Raja Mia — and her two sons, aged 17 and 8, were recovered from their home in Rakkhit village of Gangutia union in Dhamrai upazila.
Nargis’s daughter, Nasrin Akter, said at the time that the bodies of her mother and brothers were lying on the bed inside the room, wrapped in a quilt. Nargis’s family suggested at the time that food poisoning was the cause of the deaths.
It was also alleged then that people from the in-laws’ side had mixed poison into the food and carried out the killings over a property dispute. Nasrin’s husband, Robin, also made this claim at the time. He said the three had been killed by being fed poison mixed with egg and rice or with juice at night.
Police recorded an unnatural-death case that day on suspicion of food poisoning. Two days later, on June 4, Dhaka district PBI officer Monjur Rahman took charge of the investigation.
Beginning the investigation and questioning various people, Monjur Rahman learned that Robin, his wife and their child had also eaten dinner at Nargis’s house that day. A question then came to his mind: how could some people die from eating the same food while others survived?
Monjur Rahman said: “From the start the poisoning theory did not seem credible. After analysing mobile-phone location data, evidence from the scene, the seized mobile phone and other scientific evidence, Robin was brought onto the list of suspects. He was later arrested. In questioning he admitted to the killings.”
The charge sheet says that after eating in the early evening, Robin returned to his own house with his wife and child. But analysis of his mobile phone’s location showed that he went back to his in-laws’ house at 11:45 p.m.
The investigating officer said that the information that Robin was present at the scene again in the dead of night, after leaving his in-laws’ house at 7:45 p.m., became the most important evidence in the investigation.
Killings out of anger
Robin was a live-in son-in-law. After his father-in-law, Raja Mia, died, he looked after the family’s decorators’ business.
The investigating officer said Robin gave his mother-in-law no accounts. She therefore sold the business, without telling him, for about 1 lakh 70 thousand taka. Robin became very angry over this, left his in-laws’ house for his own home and kept no contact for a long time. It was after quite some time that he went to the house that day at his mother-in-law’s invitation.
The charge sheet says that on that day Robin’s wife, Nasrin, and her mother had an argument over the money from the sale of the business. Robin’s anger at his mother-in-law grew further over this. Although he ate at night and returned home with his wife and daughter, he came back to his in-laws’ house in the middle of the night.
According to police, in his confessional statement Robin said he decided at that point to take revenge. He had occasional quarrels over the business with his elder brother-in-law, the 17-year-old. He was therefore angry with everyone at his in-laws’ house.
The killings as described in the statement
In his confessional statement, Robin said that on returning to his in-laws’ house in the dead of night he first killed his elder brother-in-law by pressing a pillow over his face as he slept. He then killed his mother-in-law, Nargis, and the younger boy in the same way. He then covered the three bodies with a quilt on the same bed, so that anyone seeing them would think they were asleep. After killing the three he left at about 4 a.m. and returned to his own house.
Acting on information given by Robin, the investigating officer said, two pillows and a mobile phone were recovered.
The distance from Robin’s village to his in-laws’ house is not great — two villages lie in between — so he had an easy opportunity to travel back and forth.
After the bodies were recovered, Robin went to his in-laws’ house. He himself went on telling various media outlets the poisoning story as the likely cause. He also blamed his father-in-law’s half-brother.
In the account of officers connected with the investigation, the aim was to divert the investigation and keep himself out of suspicion.
His wife is still unsure
Nasrin Akter is still unsure whether her husband, Robin, killed her mother and brothers.
Nasrin told Prothom Alo: “I do not know whether Robin killed them. I asked him. He told me he did not kill my mother and brother. I do not believe Robin killed them. He said he gave the statement in court out of fear of the police.”
Nasrin did acknowledge, however, that her husband had a conflict with her mother and brother over the business. It was for this reason, she said, that her mother closed and sold the decorators’ business.
On Nasrin, the investigating officer, Monjur Rahman, said she and Robin had married after a love affair. Nasrin has claimed from the start that Robin is innocent. The investigation, however, points to something different.
The case was filed by Nargis’s brother, Abdur Rashid. Contacted by mobile phone, he told Prothom Alo: “I want that killer hanged. My sister loved that killer very much. But he killed my sister and my nephews.”
A witness in the case, Shahinur Rahman, demanding punishment for the guilty, said: “The killing of three people of the same family together spread fear in the area at the time. The guilty need to be punished.”
The investigating officer, Monjur Rahman, said that on the basis of the testimony of 14 people and the evidence, he submitted the charge sheet in the case to the court on January 14. In it the incident is described as a killing, with Robin named as the sole accused.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report