Teacher dies after bag-snatching attempt sends her off rickshaw

A school headteacher died after falling from a rickshaw during a bag-snatching attempt near the Khajur Bagan area beside the South Plaza of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban in the capital on Saturday, police said.

The deceased, 55-year-old Ranjila Parvin, was the headteacher of Bagbari Girls’ Government Primary School in Gabtali upazila of Bogura.

Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Monirul Islam said she had arrived in Dhaka from Bogura with her husband early Saturday to visit a doctor at Islamia Eye Hospital in Farmgate.

After getting off a bus in Gabtali, the couple took a rickshaw to the hospital. Between around 5:30am and 6:00am, they fell victim to muggers near Khajur Bagan, he said.

“Two people on a motorcycle approached the moving rickshaw and pulled at the teacher’s bag. She fell from the rickshaw and suffered a severe head injury,” the OC said.

She was rescued and taken to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital, where the on-duty doctor declared her dead.

Deputy Commissioner Ibne Mizan of the Tejgaon Division of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police told the media that police were working to identify and arrest those involved and recover the motorcycle.

Family members of the deceased teacher declined to comment on the incident.