What was initially dismissed as a drowning by local police has been uncovered as a murder by the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI).

The shocking revelation has led to the arrest and confession of two alleged killers over the death of 12-year-old Rinkon Biswas in Sunamganj last year.

Rinkon's body was recovered on 22 June 2024 from a fish enclosure owned by influential Awami League leader and Union Parishad (UP) member Lulu Mia in Chilaura village of Jagannathpur upazila in the district.

The initial narrative, widely circulated and allegedly pressured by Lulu Mia, was that the boy had fallen from a mango tree into the water and drowned. Under this pressure, Rinkon's ill-fated father Sreekanto Biswas even buried his son the same day, despite visible injury marks and without taking any photographs.

On 24 June, upon a complaint filed by Sreekanto, Jagannathpur Police Station recorded an unnatural death case.  

Following a court order, the body was exhumed after three days and a postmortem was conducted. 

Later, on 16 July last year, Basanti Rani, the mother of the victim, filed a murder case against 10 people with the court.

However, the autopsy report surprisingly concluded that Rinkon had drowned. This led the police to file a report on 15 October, reiterating the drowning theory.

The police subsequently submitted a final report in the murder case, declaring the allegations of murder false. 

Undeterred, the complainant of the case filed a no-confidence (Narazi) petition before the court on 5 November, which led to the court ordering the police station to record another murder case on 12 November. Perplexingly, this also resulted in a final report being placed by police on 12 December, once again dismissing the murder claim.

It was after receiving the second "Narazi" petition that the court, on 23 March this year, ordered the PBI Sylhet to take over the investigation. Sub-Inspector Tarikul Islam, the investigating officer from the PBI unit, revealed that their team approached the case with "profound suspicion of the deceased's parents and circumstances."

"I came to know the teenage boy knew how to swim. And I measured that the mango tree is only 10 feet high from the fish farm. So, the death of the boy could not have occurred even if he fell or jumped into water, as he knew how to swim," Tarikul Islam told the Daily Sun. 

He also uncovered information that "influential people lobbied with the police station to hush up the incident."

Based on their suspicions, the PBI arrested Prokash Tabel, 21, and Jahirul Islam, 23, from Sylhet on 17 July. During their remand, the duo confessed to the killing and implicated others. They revealed that around 12:35pm on 22 June 2024, they asked Rinkon to pick mangoes from Lulu's farm, but he refused due to live electric wires near the trees. Annoyed, they tortured him, pressing his mouth and head with cow dung until he suffocated. To conceal the crime, they then dumped his body into the farm water and spread the false story of drowning.

The arrested individuals gave their confessional statements before the court on 19 July.