Ex-principal of Eden college found dead at city home

A former principal of Eden Mohila College was found dead at her house in the capital's Elephant Road yesterday.

Mahfuza Chowdhury Parvin, aged around 65, may have been strangled between 3:30pm to 6:00pm, police said.

The social science professor was the principal of the college from February 2009 to April 2012.

Her husband Ismat Quadir Gama, vice chairman of Central Command Council of Bangladesh Muktijoddha Sangsad, was not at the flat on the 15th floor of Sukonnya Tower at the time.

Her two sons do not reside in the flat.

Gama told police that he returned home around 6:00pm and found Mahfuza lying face down on a bed with valuables scattered all over the room.

There were three domestic helps in the house. Of them, Reshma and Shopna have been missing from the flat, said Maruf Hossain Sorder, deputy commissioner (Ramna) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

A third help, an elderly woman, was detained for questioning, he told The Daily Star.

"We primarily suspect it's a murder. The cause of her death will be known after the post-mortem."

Police suspect that the missing helps, who had been working there for one and a half months, have killed her and fled with the valuables.

However, officers are yet to ascertain what valuables are missing from the flat.

The body will be sent to Dhaka Medical College morgue for an autopsy.

Meanwhile, a 35-year-old woman was stabbed to death and another woman injured at a flat in the capital's Jatrabari yesterday evening.

Salma was a resident of a flat on the third floor of a five-storey building in Kutubkhali area, said Kazi Wazed Ali, officer-in-charge of Jatrabari Police Station.

Her sister-in-law Rabeya was also stabbed, he said.