Dhaka, August 29, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Bangladesh-based human rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) has raised questions over the preliminary police account of the killings of a Hindu family in Rangpur, citing discrepancies between the official version and information provided by relatives, local residents and media reports.
The Dhaka-based rights organisation raised the concerns in a press release following a two-member fact-finding team’s visit to Rangpur on August 24 and 25, the Dhaka Tribune reported.
The incident took place on August 20, with police recovering the bodies of all four family members on the night of August 22.
Bangladesh Police had arrested two young men in connection with the killings of a retired Hindu schoolteacher and three members of his family. According to the police account, the accused allegedly planned and carried out the murders after the former Rangpur Zilla School teacher tried to prevent them from using yaba, an illicit methamphetamine-based drug, on the rooftop.
The suspects were identified as 23-year-old Siddhartha Das and 19-year-old Mugdha Das. They were detained from the Dakhiganj cremation ground in Rangpur.
Describing the killings as an “extremely brutal incident”, ASK said the case had generated serious public concern and called for a comprehensive and impartial investigation to establish the motive, sequence of events and identities of everyone involved.
The rights body said discrepancies between the preliminary police explanation and accounts from relatives, residents and media reports needed to be examined through scientific analysis of physical, digital and forensic evidence.
ASK specifically sought a detailed probe into a call made from Pritilata Chakraborty’s phone to her sister Puja at around 2:40 a.m. on August 21, which went unanswered.
The organisation said concerns raised by the victims’ relatives should not simply be dismissed as “baseless or misleading” and should instead form part of the investigation. It also called for the police version to be independently scrutinised against objective evidence.
According to ASK’s preliminary findings, several key questions remain unanswered despite the arrests and police claims that the suspects confessed, including the motive, chronology and manner of the killings and the alleged movements and activities of the suspects following the incident.
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