Police try to piece together killing of Comilla University teacher’s 13-year-old son

“Where am I supposed to look for my son… in the forest or in the water?”

Nahida Begum wrote the question on Facebook after her 13-year-old son, Ishayat Shahriar, known as Apratim, failed to return to their home in Comilla’s Kotbari area on Friday.

By Saturday, the search had ended in a forest.

Apratim, a seventh-grade student at Border Guard Public School and the only child of Nahida, an associate professor in Comilla University’s Bangla department, was found dead in the Sananda area of the Lalmai hills near the university.

He had injuries to his head, according to police and local accounts. The iPhone he had taken from his mother remained missing.

By Saturday evening, the investigation had expanded. Police had identified several people of interest and detained two suspects on the basis of CCTV footage and subsequent questioning, while police, the Detective Branch, Criminal Investigation Department, Police Bureau of Investigation and Special Response Battalion were working on different aspects of the case. 

The second detainee, identified as Anas, was taken into custody on information obtained while questioning the first suspect, Tuhin, Assistant Superintendent of Police Mostain Billah Ferdous of Sadar South Circle told Daily Waadaa. 

Police have yet to publicly establish a motive.

Comilla Superintendent of Police Mohammad Anisuzzaman told the media that investigators had obtained several important clues but were examining whether Apratim was killed solely for the iPhone or whether another motive was involved.

Investigators were comparing the suspects’ mobile phones, locations and other technical evidence with Apratim’s movements, he said.

“The person we have detained could be innocent, or he could be guilty,” Anisuzzaman told reporters earlier on Saturday, cautioning against reaching conclusions while questioning was under way. 

CCTV footage leads police to suspects

Apratim left the family’s rented home in the Kotbari-Gandhamati area at around 3.30 pm on Friday, according to his family and police.

He had taken his mother’s iPhone and told his family he was going to take photographs with friends. He did not return.

His father, KM Firoz Shahriar, searched for him before filing a general diary with Sadar South Police Station. Police and university officials then began reviewing CCTV footage from Kotbari and areas around Comilla University. 

Nahida also appealed for help on Facebook as the search continued into the night. University teachers joined the effort on Saturday morning.

Professor Mahmud Hasan, dean of the university’s Faculty of Engineering and a neighbour of Apratim’s family, told online portal bdnews24.com that CCTV recordings showed Apratim travelling along different roads with another boy.

“We saw a boy crossing different roads with Apratim,” Hasan said. Following that trail brought the searchers towards the area where Apratim would later be found. 

Another piece of footage showed Apratim near the university’s main gate with a teenager who appeared older than him and was wearing a cap.

The university’s proctorial team considered the teenager’s movements suspicious and passed the information to law enforcement.

Police later identified the youth seen with Apratim as Tuhin, 18, from the Sananda area. He was detained in Kotbari at around 3.30-3.45 pm on Saturday, according to police accounts reported by The Daily Star newspaper 

Further questioning then led investigators to Anas, who was also detained. Police have not announced charges against either detainee.

Anisuzzaman said investigators were withholding some information because disclosure could allow other people involved, if any, to flee.

Police were examining digital evidence, phone data and the movements of Apratim and the people seen with him to reconstruct what happened after he left home. 

The missing iPhone is one line of investigation.

Apratim’s father told Prothom Alo newspaper that he believed his son had been killed for the phone. Police and university officials have also cited robbery as a possible motive, but investigators have not reached a final conclusion. 

Other possible motives have also emerged.

Jugantor newspaper reported that investigators were looking at possible connections to teenage gangs and drug networks operating around Kotbari and Salmanpur. It also reported allegations that Apratim had been lured towards the hills and that several teenagers may have been waiting there. 

Those accounts have not been established by police as the definitive sequence of events.

The same report raised another possible line of inquiry involving Nahida’s previous role as acting proctor of Comilla University.

Nahida served as acting proctor for about a month in February-March 2025. According to Jugantor newspaper, students detained eight teenagers from the Salmanpur area on March 1 that year after allegedly finding them taking drugs at the university’s Central Shaheed Minar. Nahida subsequently handed them over to police. 

The report said investigators were considering speculation that people connected to local teenage gangs or drug networks could have held a grudge against her.

Police have not established such a connection, and Anisuzzaman said investigators were still determining whether the killing involved only the phone or another motive. 

A search ends in the Lalmai hills

While investigators were reconstructing Apratim’s movements, a group of local residents had made the discovery that ended the search.

Mohammad Abdul Quader Zilani, a labourer, was heading through the Sananda area with others to cut bamboo on Saturday morning when someone accompanying him noticed a child lying in the forest.

Zilani said they went closer and saw blood around the boy’s head. Frightened, they left.

Zilani did not have a watch or mobile phone and could not give an exact time, but estimated from the position of the sun that the discovery was between 10.30 am and 11.30 am.

After emerging from the forest, he met a local resident named Mamun and learned that the son of a Comilla University teacher was missing. Zilani told him that a child was lying in the forest. The two returned to the spot.

The child was Apratim. University teachers who had been following the CCTV trail were also moving towards the area.

Professor Mahmud Hasan told bdnews24.com that after following Apratim’s movements through different CCTV cameras, searchers reached the road near the site and were told by a local resident that a child’s body was lying nearby.

They rushed there at around 12.30 pm. 

Police recovered the body at around 1 pm from the secluded area near the foot of the Lalmai hills. Different reports describe the location as Sananda or Dakkhin Mor in the Salmanpur area, close to Comilla University and Magic Paradise Park. 

The body was sent to the Comilla Medical College Hospital morgue for an autopsy.

Talking with Waadaa, an investigating officer of the case said an inquest and post-mortem examination would be needed to establish the nature of Apratim’s injuries and cause of death. Anisuzzaman said earlier Saturday that the inquest had not been completed when he was asked about the injuries. 

The iPhone was not recovered from the scene.

Jugantor, citing sources, reported allegations that Apratim had been strangled and beaten and that his phone and wallet had been taken before his body was left in the hills. Police have not publicly confirmed those details, and the autopsy findings had not been released as of Saturday evening. 

For investigators, the CCTV footage now provides a partial timeline: Apratim leaves home Friday afternoon; cameras capture him moving through the area with another teenager; his family reports him missing; and roughly 20 hours after his disappearance, his body is found in the hills.

What happened between the final CCTV sightings and the discovery of the body remains the central question.

Anisuzzaman said multiple police teams were working on the case and promised that everyone found to have participated in the killing would be brought under the law. 

Comilla University Proctor Professor Abdul Hakim told Waadaa that university authorities had been coordinating with police and several specialist law-enforcement units since Apratim disappeared.

Students later demonstrated on the university campus, demanding that those responsible for the killing be identified and prosecuted.

At the family home, Nahida was left asking why her only child had been killed.

“What wrong did my son do? I want an answer,” she said.

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