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Published : 20 Jul 2026, 03:11 PM
A Chattogram court has sentenced Md Rubel to death for murdering schoolgirl Abida Sultana Ayni in the city's Pahartali three years ago.
Judge Md Saifur Rahman of Chattogram's Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-2 delivered the verdict on Monday.
Ayni, 10, was found dead in a ditch near a poultry farm and Alomtara pond near Sagorika Bylane on the morning of Mar 29, 2023.
She was a fourth-grade student at Pahartali's Abdul Hadi Primary School, and lived with her family near Abdur Kazi's pond in the same area.
Her mother Bibi Fatema, 26, worked at a garment factory, while her father worked at a garment factory in Dhaka.
The family had lost contact with Ayni since the evening of Mar 21, 2023.
After filing a general diary with police brought no results, her mother went to court seven days later, on Mar 28, to file an abduction case.
The judge, on hearing her plea, directed the Pahartali Police Station chief to treat the complaint as a first information report (FIR).
The case named neighbourhood vegetable seller Md Rubel, 35, as the suspect.
After his detention, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) learned of the child's body, which was recovered the following day.
In the FIR, Ayni's mother said her daughter had asked her to buy a kitten a few days before the incident, after a schoolfriend had gotten one.
She said she had told her daughter she would buy one once she received her salary, and that Ayni had then said a vegetable seller on the street knew someone who could get her a kitten.
On Mar 20, 2023, Ayni collided with Rubel's vegetable van while trying to catch a kitten on the street.
Rubel, a neighbour, spoke with the child for about five minutes at the time, telling her he would get her a kitten.
The following afternoon, on Mar 21, the two crossed paths again on the street, and Rubel took her away in his van, on the pretext of giving her a kitten, to an empty flat.
PBI Inspector Ilias Khan, who investigated the case, had said at the time that Rubel took the child to the fourth floor of a building, an empty flat belonging to someone he knew.
According to the case details, Rubel attempted to sexually assault the child inside the flat. When she tried to scream and open the door to escape, he threatened her and warned her not to tell anyone.
Fearing she would report the incident, Rubel killed her by strangulation.
After his arrest, Rubel confessed to the killing during police interrogation and described the sequence of events.
He said the child was killed between 5:30pm and 6pm on Mar 21 that year.
Police said Rubel had joined other neighbours in searching for the missing child that evening.
Around 9pm, once the crowd had thinned, he returned to the flat where he had hidden her body, put it in a sack, and dumped it in the ditch near Alomtara pond.
Rubel, a father of one son and one daughter, lived near Kazir Dighi, where he sold vegetables from a van.
Ayni, his neighbour, lived with her mother, a garment worker, and grandmother.
