RAB says Jaifa, a child kidnapped from Lalbagh, was to be held for ransom

The law enforcers rescued the child from Fatema Akhtar Shapla, who was subletting the house from where the child was abducted

The Rapid Action Battalion says eight-month-old Arisa Jannat Jaifa, who was kidnapped during a robbery at a house in Dhaka’s Lalbagh, was abducted for a ransom.

The elite force disclosed the information following the child’s rescue and the arrest of the prime suspect 27-year-old Fatema Akhtar Shapla, who began staying at the house as a ‘paying guest’ a day earlier.

The rescue occurred within 16 hours of the child’s abduction on Friday morning.

In a statement on Saturday morning, RAB said they rescued Jaifa from Dhaka’s Mohammadpur area around midnight on Friday and arrested a woman in connection with the crime.

A RAB-10 team apprehended Fatema during a raid at a house in the Nabi Nagar Housing area of around 1:30pm on Saturday. Jaifa was rescued from the house and returned to her family.

On Friday morning, Fatema and three other men robbed the house of Abu Jafar and Farzana Akhtar on the ground floor of a two-storey building near the capital’s Lalbagh Tower on Friday morning. They abducted the child during the robbery.

Jaifa's mother Farzana is a government employee and her father works in a private firm. The family has been living in the house for the past three years. However, the child’s father has been separated for the last four months due to a family dispute, but he would come home for visits.

Speaking at a media briefing at RAB Media Centre in Dhaka's Karwan Bazar spokesman Lt Col Md Munim Ferdous said: "Fatema confessed to her involvement in the robbery and kidnapping during initial interrogation."

A week before the abduction, Farzana met detained Fatema while travelling to her office. At that time, Fatema had concealed her identity and said that she was Raisa from Naogaon. She said she was unmarried and a BBA second semester student of a university and worked as an office assistant in the transport pool of the Secretariat alongside her studies.

Fatema also told Farzana that she needed a good room to rent in Dhaka.

She said that if a family with a child allowed her to sublet, she would be able to study at home and act as a babysitter.

Farzana agreed to let Fatema sublet due to her promise to help with babysitting. On Thursday afternoon, Fatema moved into the house and paid Tk 2,000 as advance rent.

The next morning, Fatema told Farzana that her ‘cousin’ from the village would come over with rice. At about 8:30am, Fatema introduced her ‘cousin’ and brought the three men to the home.

At one point during the conversation, Fatema and her so-called cousins threatened Farzana with sharp weapons and tied her hands and legs with a scarf. They looted cash, jewellery and other valuables from the house and also snatched Jaifa.

"After the abduction, Fatema went to her house in Mohammadpur's Nabi Nagar along with the child. Her accomplices went into hiding to avoid arrest by the law-enforcing agencies. Fatema and her accomplices had a plan to demand a ransom. But they were not able to do so as the incident quickly spread through news outlets and social media.”

During the interrogation, Fatema identified her three accomplices as Sumon, Hasan, and Raihan. They have yet to be arrested. The group had been following Farzana for two weeks before the abduction. They had a plan to commit the robbery on Thursday. However, they did not proceed as a relative was staying in the house that day.

"They had a plan to demand a ransom of Tk 1 million,” Lt Col Munim said. “Fatema, however, had not been involved in such a kidnapping before. Whether anyone from the victim's family is involved with the kidnappers will be investigated. The child's father is also on our watch list."

Regarding the arrestee, the RAB said Fatema is a housewife. Her husband's name is Selim Hossain. She started living with her family in the capital's Mohammadpur in 2010. They hailed from Bogura.

Fatema passed her SSC from a school in Bogura in 2012 and her HSC from a college in Dhaka’s Lalmatia in 2014. Later, she enrolled in an honours course in marketing at the same college, but did not complete it.

She got married and started living in her husband's flat in the Mohammadpur Nabi Nagar Housing area a few months ago.