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Rahima was not abducted: PBI

‘Her daughter Marium staged kidnapping drama to set up neighbours’

  • Staff Correspondent
  • 14 February, 2023 12:00 AM
  • Print news
Rahima was not abducted: PBI

Rahima Begum, who was found alive about one month after her disappearance in August last year, was not abducted, rather her daughter Marium Mannan staged the abduction drama only to frame their neighbours over a land dispute, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) has claimed.

Superintendent of Police (SP) of PBI Khulna unit Syed Mushfiqur Rahman came up with the information at a press briefing in Khulna on Monday.

The briefing was arranged after the specialised police unit submitted the investigation report in the abduction case before a Khulna court in the morning recommending punishment for Marium Mannan, a quota reform movement activist, her mother Rahima Begum and sister Aduri Akhter for staging the abduction drama and lodging the false case.  

Mushfiqur said Marium staged the abduction drama and Rahima kept her hiding intentionally as per her daughter’s plot while Aduri filed the false case against five innocent people, who were their neighbours.

He said they also recommended that the five innocent people, who were even put behind bars in the case, be exonerated.

Rahima’s husband Abdul Mannan Howlader had another marriage. Her stepchildren with their mother live in Patharghata of Barguna.

Mannan gave them a piece of land at Maheshwarpasha in Daulatpur of Khulna, which they sold to Helal Sharif and Golam Kibria.

Marium staged the drama so that the land buyers could not take control of the land, said the police officer.

According to him, Rahima went missing from their house at Maheswarpasha on the night of August 27, 2022.

Her daughter Aduri lodged a case against the five neighbours – Moin Uddin, Golam Kibria, Rafiqul Islam, Mohammad Jewel and Helal Sharif -- with Daulatpur Police Station the following day.

On September 4, law enforcers arrested them. They are now out on bail.

Mushfiqur said Rahima with the help of her second husband Belal Howlader went to the capital on August 27 where she stayed at Marium’s residence until September 6.

After that, she went to one Razia’s house in Bandarban. From September 12 to September 16, she worked at a food shop owned by one Moni Begum and lived in her (Moni’s) house, he said.

Later, Rahima went to an office for a job, but did not get it as she could not show the copy of her national identity card.

On September 17, she went to the house of Abdul Kuddus, her acquaintance, at Syedpur village in Boalmari of Faridpur where she tried to get a birth certificate in fake name and address, but did not succeed.

On September 24, law enforcers rescued her from Kuddus’s house.