Child's body found stuffed in sack at Sirajganj home, stepmother faces murder charges

Authorities suspect the 7-year-old girl was either suffocated or beaten to death

The body of a 7-year-old girl has been found packed in a sack in Sirajganj's Kamarkhand Upazila. Initial suspicions point to her being murdered by her stepmother.

Sirajganj Additional Superintendent of Police (Kamarkhand Circle) Rabiul Islam said the child's body was recovered on Sunday from her home in the Upazila's Kutirchar area.

The child, identified as Hazera Khatun, was the daughter of Harunur Rashid and a first-grader at Kutirchar Government Primary School.

According to her grandmother, Monowara Khatun, Hazera’s biological mother eloped with another man nearly seven years ago.

Harun later married Ruby Khatun, daughter of Rabiul Islam from Mugbelai village. Since then, Monowara, along with Hazera, Ruby, and Harun, had been living in the same house. Ruby has twin sons from her marriage to Harun.

“Hazera went missing after returning home from school on Sunday afternoon. Around the same time, Ruby left the house claiming she was going to get medicine, leaving her twin sons behind. But she never returned," said Monowara.

“Later, the twins seemed afraid to enter their room. Suspecting something was wrong, we began searching the house and eventually found Hazera’s body stuffed in a sack inside a bucket under the bed.”

ASP Rabiul said the police have sent the body to the morgue for an autopsy.

Preliminary assumptions suggest the girl was either suffocated or beaten to death. The exact cause will be confirmed once the autopsy report is released.

Rabiul added that the stepmother had been absconding since the incident, and preparations were underway to file a case over the suspected murder.