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Sunday | October 11, 2026 | Dhaka

Driver held for killing after rape schoolgirl in Cumilla

 Staff Reporter
 Published: 12:01 AM, 11 October 2026  Updated: 11:38 PM, 10 October 2026

A 13-year-old schoolgirl whose body was found in a paddy field in Cumilla was raped and murdered while travelling home in a hired CNG-run auto-rickshaw, police said on Saturday.

The accused driver, Sumon Mia, 35, was arrested in Chattogram on Friday. Police said he confessed during preliminary interrogation to raping and killing Jannatul Tajmin, a Class Seven student of Farida Bidyayatan in Cumilla city. Her iPhone was later recovered based on information provided by the accused, they said.

Additional Superintendent of Police Pankaj Barua disclosed the details at a press conference at the Cumilla district police superintendent’s office on Saturday morning.

According to police, a call was made to the national emergency service 999 on the morning of October 8 after the girl’s body was spotted beside the embankment of a paddy field in Uttarpara village

of Bhorajagatpur in Lalmai upazila. Lalmai police recovered the body and began efforts to establish her identity. Her father later identified her.

Tajmin’s family originally came from Chhatianatala village in Jashore Sadar. They lived in the Racecourse area of Cumilla city because of her father’s job at a pharmaceutical company.

Police said Tajmin hired Sumon’s auto-rickshaw at around 12:30am on October 8 from in front of the Tisha bus counter in the Padua Bazar Bishwa Road area to reach her home in Racecourse. They agreed on a fare of Tk 300. After travelling some distance, she gave the driver Tk 100 to buy bananas and bread.

Sumon then told her he would take a shortcut. Instead, he made a U-turn near Nurjahan Hotel, took the road towards Chandpur and travelled through Bijra Bazar in Laksam upazila.

He eventually stopped at a secluded, dark place. When Tajmin realised they were not heading towards Racecourse and asked where he had taken her, the driver told her it was another location, police said.

According to the police account, Tajmin got out of the vehicle and tried to escape, but Sumon stopped her and attempted to rape her. When she screamed, he wrapped his gamchha around her neck. Police said he later took her to a paddy field, placed her face down and pressed her head with his foot to ensure she was dead.

The accused then took her iPhone from her handbag, left the bag in the field and fled in the auto-rickshaw, police said.

Police further said Sumon bathed in a pond in front of Kachikata Mosque after fleeing the scene. He later travelled in another hired CNG-run auto-rickshaw to Bakhrabad, where he hid the stolen phone in bushes beside a pond before escaping to Chattogram.

A joint team from the District Detective Branch and Lalmai police arrested him there on Friday. The phone was subsequently recovered from the location he identified, police said.

Tajmin’s father has filed a murder case with Lalmai Police Station. Police said legal proceedings against the accused were under way. Lalmai Police Station Officer-in-Charge Md Mizan and other senior district police officials attended the press conference.

Meanwhile, Tajmin was buried in her family graveyard in Chhatianatala village in Jashore Sadar on Friday at 11am, following funeral prayers. Her body reached the village late the previous night, leaving relatives and local residents mourning her death.

Her mother, Keya Khatun, broke down in grief when journalists visited the family home, saying, “My darling bird has gone.”

Her father, Abdul Alim, who works for a pharmaceutical company in Cumilla, said Tajmin was their only child. He recalled that she had left home on October 4, saying she was going to a friend’s house. Whenever the family contacted her, she told them she was staying there.

“At around quarter to two on Wednesday night, she sent a live location message, asking us to come and pick her up,” he said.
He said he was asleep when the message arrived and saw it the following morning. When he went to the location, he found his daughter’s body being recovered.