The rented flat in Kalachandpur West Para remained locked and silent on Saturday night, hiding a grim discovery that would soon shatter a family’s worst fears.

Inside lay the body of 27-year-old Sadia Rahman Mim, a beauty parlour owner whose throat had been slit. Police later said the body bore multiple injury marks, indicating a brutal killing.

Mim, daughter of late Shahid Ali of Dhanbari upazila in Tangail, lived in the Gulshan-area flat with her roommate, Nusrat. She ran a beauty salon in Kalachandpur and also worked at a bar.

Her elder sister Shahida said the silence began on January 16. She last spoke with Mim over the phone around 11:30am that day. By nightfall, Mim’s phone was switched off. Repeated calls the next day went unanswered.

Worried, Shahida contacted Nusrat, who told her she had gone to her village home two days earlier and knew nothing about Mim’s whereabouts.

Unable to shake her concern, Shahida left Tangail for Dhaka on the afternoon of January 17. When she reached her sister’s rented house around 9pm, the flat was locked. “With the help of the landlord and local people, we broke open the lock and found my sister dead inside,” Shahida said.

She immediately called the National Emergency Service 999. Police and members of the CID crime scene team arrived shortly afterwards.

Md Maruf Ahmed, sub-inspector of Gulshan Police Station, said police recovered the body on Saturday night and sent it to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) morgue for autopsy on Sunday.

Police detained Mim’s roommate Nusrat for interrogation.

Following the recovery of the body, Shahida filed a case with Gulshan Police Station against unidentified persons.

After the autopsy, the family received Mim’s body from the DMCH morgue, said her brother-in-law Noor Nabi. The body will be taken to Dhanbari in Tangail for burial.

Police said further investigation is underway.