Police on Monday arrested a woman for murdering her husband, whose body parts were recovered the previous day from three areas of the capital.

The arrestee, Fatema Khatun, works as a domestic help and during initial interrogation on Monday confessed to police that she had killed her husband, Moyna Miya, and cut his body into six pieces.

Mohammad Harun Or Rashid, joint commissioner of Detective Branch (DB) of police, made the disclosure yesterday while addressing a briefing at the media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Fatema was shown arrested in a case filed with the Banani Police Station by the victim's second wife Nasrin Akter yesterday.

Fatema told police that she had drugged Moyna Mia with sleeping pills mixed in a glass of juice, and then decapitated and dismembered his body in their home.

Fatema said during interrogation that she committed the murder out of extreme desperation as Moyna married a second time despite having two children with Fatema, the DB joint commissioner said. 

After killing Moyna, she put the different parts of his body inside sacks and drums and dumped those in the city's Mohakhali kitchen market, Mohakhali bus stand and Banani lake.

Joint Commissioner Harun said Moyna was killed because he planned to stay with his second wife, leaving his first wife.

On May 30, police recovered a decapitated, dismembered body from a blue drum from near Mohakhali kitchen market around 8:30pm. Half an hour later the same day, two amputated legs and two severed arms were recovered from a bag near Mohakhali bus stand, and soon afterwards the head of the victim was recovered from Banani lake.

Mashiur Rahman, deputy commissioner of DB police, said Fatema and Moyna often used to engage in family feud over finances and his second marriage.

He further said that Fatema had hired a rickshaw for Tk 1,300 and visited three different spots from Kakrail and dumped the body parts.

Police are looking for the rickshaw-puller, he added.