[Dhaka Tribune] A 25-year-old woman was stabbed to death by her co-wife in an apartment in Chittagong’s Panchlaish area yesterday.| Co-wife. There's your trouble... |
| Boy howdy but I've spent too much time around a liberal university. I saw "co-wife" and my brain went in a completely different direction... |
| Clearly my education is deficient. What is there besides old-style Mormons, Saudi harems and African kraals? |
The family of deceased Sharmin Akhter alleged that she was killed by her co-wife Rozi Akhter, 35, who wanted to be the only heir to their expatriate husband’s wealth.
During primary interrogation at the Panchlaish police station, Rozi confessed that she and two of her brothers had killed Sharmin, her husband’s second wife.
Mohiuddin Mahmud, OC of the police station, said that they had recovered a knife from the apartment which was used for the murder.
Sharmin, mother of a one-year-old boy named Ahmad, is the second wife of Abdul Hakim, a Bangladeshi expatriate living in Abu Dhabi of United Arab Emirates (UAE).
About a week ago, Sharmin came to live in the apartment where Rozi Akhter, lives with her three daughters, domestic help Nazmin and her cousin Md Ali, 16, who has been missing since the murder.
According to Md Anis, Rozi’s chauffeur and the first witness of the incident, Ali is a first year student of the Patia Government College. He used to live with Rozi and give tuition to her three daughters.
Anis said that around noon yesterday, he took Ali and two of Rozi’s daughters to the Kalamia Bazar area. They went there to visit an ailing female cousin of Rozi. After dropping them there, Anis called his boss who answered the phone but was crying. Anis then told Ali that something might be wrong back at home.
Anis came back in a hurry and found that Sharmin was lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the dining room, writhing in pain. He then called the security guard of the building and neighbours and took Sharmin to hospital.
Police said that they had found five people, including Rozi, in the apartment when they went there. But there was no explanation about how the two daughters had returned from their aunt’s and why Ali was still missing. All five of them were taken to the Panchlaish police station for primary investigation.
Dipok Jyoti Khisha, an assistant commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police, said the incident took place sometime between 1pm and 1:30pm. Sharmin’s body was taken to the Chittagong Medical College Hospital where doctors declared her dead. The body had been kept at the morgue for autopsy.
Sharmin’s uncle Mohammad Azim alleged that Rozi had killed his niece because she wanted to be the only heir to their husband’s wealth.
Azim said that Hakim and Sharmin got married two years ago. “Sharmin used to live in an apartment in the city’s Bahaddarhat area. Hakim visited the country about a month ago. Before going back to Abu Dhabi, he left Sharmin and her son to her maternal home in Boalkhali of Chittagong.
“However, Rozi asked Hakim to leave Sharmin at her apartment. She said the place was too big for them and Sharmin could easily stay there. When I went to visit them a few days ago, Rozi told me that she was worried with the recent incidents of robbery and murder. That made me suspicious,” Azim told the Dhaka Tribune.
“If it was robbers who killed my niece, then they would have ransacked the apartment and harmed the others. But, apart from Sharmin, nobody else was harmed,” he said.
When this report was being filed last evening, Panchlaish police was making preparations for filing a case.