Mousumi was known in Chattogram as a Guru Ma and a leader within the local hijra community. At 52, she had become known through the leadership role she carried among other hijra people in Chattogram. Her murder took a recognized community leader from the people who knew her and left members of that community demanding justice in her name.
On Sept. 5, Mousumi was found dead inside her home in the Ambagan Railway Colony area of Chattogram. Police reported marks around her neck and blood around her mouth. Her father filed a murder case with Khulshi Police Station, turning the search for the person who killed her into a formal criminal investigation.
Investigators say CCTV footage became the key piece of evidence that led them to Md Momin, also known as Sheikh Rony, 34. Police say the footage showed him entering Mousumi’s room at approximately 1:14 a.m. and leaving at about 3:52 a.m. Investigators used that record to identify and arrest him.
Police say Momin confessed during questioning to strangling Mousumi with a nylon strap. That reported confession places the killing itself at the center of the case: Mousumi was strangled inside her own home, and investigators say the man they identified through surveillance footage admitted that he killed her.
Momin also gave investigators an account of what happened before Mousumi was killed. Police say he described an argument involving money and a sexual relationship. That explanation remains his account to investigators. It does not replace the established harm at the center of the case: Mousumi was killed, police identified a suspect through CCTV evidence, and investigators say that suspect confessed to strangling her.
Some members of the hijra community have separately raised fears that extremists were responsible for Mousumi’s death. That claim remains distinct from the police case now centered on Momin. The criminal investigation has moved forward on the evidence police say connects him directly to Mousumi’s killing.
For the people who knew Mousumi, the case is not only about identifying who killed her. Community members gathered after her death and demanded justice for a woman they knew as Guru Ma. That role matters because Mousumi was recognized as a leader within Chattogram’s hijra community before her death.
Mousumi’s father has filed a murder case, police have arrested Momin, and investigators say he confessed to strangling her. Those developments belong to the accountability record, but the human center remains the woman who was killed inside her home and the hijra community now forced to continue without one of its leaders.
Mousumi’s name should remain attached to more than the details of how she died. She was a transgender community leader, a Guru Ma, and a woman whose death left members of Chattogram’s hijra community demanding that the man police say confessed to killing her be held accountable.
The arrest is one step in the accountability process for Mousumi’s murder. Trans United will keep documenting what happens next in her case while supporting transgender people facing violence and instability.
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I hope Momin gets life.