In October 2009 Rasu Kha told a magistrate that he had killed 11 women in Chandpur district over about two years, beginning in early 2007. Two courts in Chandpur have since sentenced him to death, in April 2015 and in March 2018, each time for the rape and murder of one woman. In July 2024 the High Court upheld the second of those sentences.
The 11 deaths he described to the magistrate are not 11 convictions. Two cases ended in convictions at trial. One case ended in an acquittal. The others were pending in 2015 and 2018, and their later outcomes are not on record.
Rasu Kha came from Madna village in Chandpur Sadar upazila, Chandpur district. The High Court reports of 2024 name his father as Manu Kha, also called Abu Kha; the Daily Star gave the name in 2015 as Abul Kha. His date of birth is not on record. Bdnews24 gave his age as 40 in October 2009, while later reports gave 45, 46 and 50, so no firm year of birth can be drawn from them.
The Daily Star described him in 2018 as a former petty thief. In 2009 he told police he had worked as a dye worker and had stolen before he began killing, and the paper reported that he had also been a supervisor. He was married for about eleven years, the paper reported, then divorced and married his former wife's younger sister. He was the father of three children, according to the Daily Star.
He lived for years in Tongi, an industrial town in Gazipur district north of Dhaka, and the Daily Star reported that he told police the idea of his crimes came to him there. By his own account, a woman from a wealthier family had refused his repeated proposals about fifteen years before his arrest, and he said her relatives had beaten him. Inspector Ranjit Kumar Palit of Faridganj police told AFP in 2018 that Rasu Kha had given this rejection as the reason for what he did. Police and the courts treated this as his own account. It is not a finding of any court.
The inquiry began with a theft. Bdnews24 reported in October 2009 that Rasu Kha was arrested at Tongi on September 3 for taking fans from a mosque in Faridganj, an upazila of Chandpur district. The Daily Star and the High Court reports of 2024 give a different date, October 7, 2009, for his arrest at Niraspara in Tongi. The two dates may describe two stages of one process: an arrest over the theft, and a fresh arrest and remand in the murder inquiry.
The larger inquiry began with another case. Police in Chandpur were looking into the killing of a woman in Chandpur Sadar, and a mobile phone SIM card used in a call connected to the case led them to Rasu Kha. Bdnews24 reported on October 11, 2009, that he began to talk in police custody on a Saturday and gave a confessional statement lasting four hours in court on the Sunday. The 2024 High Court coverage described it as a confession under Section 164.
The magistrate who took the statement is named differently in two reports. The Daily Star in 2015 gave Senior Judicial Magistrate Abdur Rahman, and bdnews24 the same year gave Chandpur Judicial Magistrate Amirul Islam. Both reports describe the same document, a confession recorded before a magistrate shortly after his arrest.
According to bdnews24 and the Daily Star, Rasu Kha said he had killed 11 women. Six of the killings, he said, were in Faridganj upazila, four in Chandpur Sadar upazila and one in the Haimchar area. He said the first was his brother-in-law's wife, killed in early 2007, and that ten more women, aged 15 to 35, followed up to August 2009. The women, the Daily Star reported, came mostly from Tongi and Savar, near Dhaka, while the killings took place in Chandpur district.
He also gave a number for the future. He told police he meant to kill 101 women and, in bdnews24's wording of his statement, he excepted only his wife. The Daily Star reported that after that he planned to spend the rest of his life at a shrine in Sylhet. Police inspector Palit told AFP in 2018, "He told us he wanted to kill at least 101 women." In 2009 the Faridganj police chief, Palit, said Rasu Kha did not seem at all mad and was "remarkably unruffled" while confessing.
In court on a day of remand hearings, the Daily Star reported, he said he had no one behind him: "I have no godfather," he told the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Chandpur, Mozammel Haque, and he said he alone had done the killings and that others were being wrongly named. In the police station, the paper reported separately, he told the regional police chief he had killed all 11 women in Chandpur, asked not to be charged with further killings, and asked to be given life in prison instead of being executed. The Daily Star described him as weeping as he spoke.
His nephew Zahirul Islam was also named in the confession. According to bdnews24, Rasu Kha said Zahirul helped him in the last of the killings, and Zahirul gave a statement to a court on the same Saturday. That killing became the case in which the nephew was later sentenced.
The confession set off a series of police inquiries in Chandpur. Police in Chandpur sent a three-member committee to Tongi to establish the identities of seven of the women who were said to have come from there. The District Police Superintendent, Krishnapada Roy, said police would also arrest anyone found to have helped him. The Daily Star reported on October 15, 2009, that the Chief Judicial Magistrate had granted Rasu Kha a three-day remand in connection with the killing of S. B., whose case Sub-Inspector Nazrul Islam of Chandpur Model Police Station had been handling.
Remand hearings followed one after another. A court gave police two more days on October 13, 2009, according to bdnews24, after they had asked for seven. On a later date, the Daily Star reported, he received six days of remand when police had sought ten. The paper reported in November 2009 that investigators of the Criminal Investigation Department began questioning him about the killing of a woman in Haimchar upazila whom he had not named in his October statement. The same paper said investigators from the CID's Comilla region would also question him.
Police later detained three more people in Tongi, according to the Daily Star: two men and the wife of one of them. It described them as accomplices of Rasu Kha. Police said two of them were shown as arrested in connection with the killing of an unidentified woman in Faridganj upazila on September 1, 2007. Whether they were later charged or tried is not on record.
By 2018 the Daily Star could report that police had identified five of the eleven women. The other six remained unidentified in that report. Most of the women, in the Daily Star's words in 2015, had never been identified.
The first conviction concerned S. B., who was 19 and came from Khulna district. The Daily Star said she was killed in Chandpur district on December 17, 2008, in Chandpur Sadar upazila. Bdnews24, reporting the same verdict, gave a different date, August 18, 2008, and placed the killing in Faridganj. Both reports place the crime in Chandpur district in 2008.
According to bdnews24, police first registered a case against unknown people, made no progress and filed a final report. After Rasu Kha admitted the killing of S. B. in 2009, the case was reopened.
The trial took place before Additional District and Sessions Judge Arunav Chakravarty in Chandpur. On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, according to bdnews24, or the day before, according to the Daily Star's "yesterday," the court sentenced him to death for the rape and murder of S. B. The Daily Star reported that he was also given a prison term and a fine of Tk 10,000, and bdnews24 reported a separate eight-year term and fine. The reports differ on these lesser penalties. Additional Public Prosecutor Saidul Islam spoke to the Daily Star after the verdict. The defense lawyer, Noymul Islam, told bdnews24 that the High Court would decide whether the judgment was correct, and he called the sentence "an initial sentencing."
Several later reports describe the 2015 verdict as coming from a court in Khulna, which was the victim's home district; the Daily Star's report from Chandpur at the time of the verdict named the Chandpur court. The Daily Star's 2018 report also listed a woman of the same name among the women police had identified, describing her as the wife of his brother-in-law. Whether she is the same woman as the victim in the 2015 case is not on record.
AFP, in a 2015 report printed by the Guardian of Nigeria, said that he had confessed to at least 11 killings and was being tried separately for the others. AFP gave his age as 50.
Rasu Kha appealed. AFP wrote in March 2018 that the 2015 verdict was under appeal, and bdnews24 wrote the same. The outcome of that appeal is not on record.
At the time of the 2015 verdict, the Daily Star reported, ten cases had been filed against Rasu Kha, including S. B.'s. Nine of them had been brought under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act in the courts of Chandpur and Chittagong. He had been acquitted in one of the nine, and the remaining eight were pending before courts in the two districts.
The Daily Star's 2018 report on the second verdict described the acquittal. A tribunal in Chittagong acquitted him of the killing of a girl in Chandpur in 2009. The report gave the month and day, August 21, but not the year. An acquittal means that court found the charge not proved against him, and so that killing is not among his convictions.
Counts of the cases vary with the outlet. Bdnews24 called the 2018 verdict one of nine murder cases naming him. The Financial Express quoted Sub-Inspector Mir Kashem as saying Rasu Kha was accused of eight murders and several cases of rape. AFP said he faced charges over seven other women's deaths. These are counts of cases at different dates, and none of them is a count of convictions.
The second conviction concerned P. A., a woman of 35. She was killed on July 20, 2009, at Hasa village in Faridganj upazila, according to the Financial Express in 2018 and the reports of the 2024 High Court hearing. The Daily Star and the prosecutor, quoted by bdnews24, said instead that the case dated to 2010. The earlier date matches the court documents the Bangladeshi news agency BSS described in 2024.
Three men were charged: Rasu Kha, his nephew Zahirul Islam and a man named Yunus, whose full name was given as Yunus Miah in the Financial Express. According to bdnews24, the prosecution rested on his confession to the magistrate.
The Chandpur Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal delivered its verdict on Tuesday, March 6, 2018. Judge Abdul Mannan, who is also the District and Sessions Judge, sentenced all three men to death. The Financial Express gave their ages as 45, 35 and 42. The Daily Star said Zahirul was in custody and Yunus was on the run, according to Public Prosecutor Habibul Islam. Bdnews24 quoted Additional Public Prosecutor Sayedul Islam on the case.
AFP, in a 2018 report printed by Gulf Times, wrote that Rasu Kha had been sentenced for a second time and that he could appeal. The Daily Star described the killing in this case as one of the eleven he had admitted.
The death reference and the convicts' appeals went to the High Court Division. A bench of the High Court Division, made up of Justice Syed Md Ziaul Karim and Justice KM Imrul Kayesh (given as Emrul Kayesh in some reports), heard the death reference and the appeals. On Tuesday, July 9, 2024, it upheld the death sentence for Rasu Kha. It reduced the death sentences of Zahirul Islam and Yunus to life imprisonment, with a fine of Tk 50,000 each and one more year in prison if the fine was not paid. Deputy Attorney General Manirul Islam represented the state. The Financial Express, citing bdnews24.com, said Yunus was still absconding.
Some outlets published the news on Wednesday, July 10, and the Financial Express's lead sentence gave the day of the ruling as Wednesday. BSS, Dhaka Tribune, UNB and the Observer put the ruling on July 9.
In July 2024 the death sentence in the P. A. case stood, confirmed by the High Court. Whether a further appeal has been filed with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court is not on record, nor is the prison where he is held.
In 2015 eight cases were reported pending, and in 2018 the reports still counted seven or eight women's deaths awaiting verdicts. Police had identified five of the eleven women by the time of the 2018 reports, and the other six remain unidentified on the record.
The number eleven comes from Rasu Kha's own statement to a magistrate. A court has convicted him of two killings. No convictions are on record for the other nine, and a tribunal acquitted him in one case.
The date of the first arrest differs between September 3 and October 7, 2009. The date and place of S. B.'s death differ between reports. The year of P. A.'s death is given as 2009 by the court documents and as 2010 by the prosecutor. The magistrate who took the confession is named differently. Reports that the first verdict came from a court in Khulna are contradicted by the Chandpur reports of the time. Reports that he intended to kill 101 women come from his own statements to police and are not a court finding. The explanation he gave for his offending, a rejection by a woman about fifteen years before, is his account and was not tested in court.
Early 2007: by his own account, the first of the 11 killings; the victim was his brother-in-law's wife.
2008: S. B. is killed in Chandpur district (December 17 according to the Daily Star; August 18 according to bdnews24).
July 20, 2009: P. A. is killed at Hasa village, Faridganj upazila.
August 2009: the last of the 11 killings by his account.
September 3, 2009: arrested at Tongi over the theft of fans from a mosque in Faridganj, according to bdnews24.
October 7, 2009: arrested at Niraspara, Tongi, and held in the murder inquiry, according to the Daily Star and the High Court reports.
October 11, 2009: gives a four-hour confession in court to killing 11 women.
October 2009: remand hearings in Chandpur; police arrest three people in Tongi described as his accomplices.
November 2009: CID investigators begin questioning him about a further killing in Haimchar.
April 2015: Chandpur court sentences him to death for the rape and murder of S. B.; he appeals.
March 6, 2018: Chandpur Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal sentences him, his nephew and Yunus to death for the rape and murder of P. A.
July 9, 2024: High Court upholds his death sentence and reduces his nephew's and Yunus's sentences to life imprisonment.