She took refuge in her mother's house to save herself from her husband's torture and keep her three-year-old son out of harm's way.

But her desperate bid to save herself and her son went in vain as both ended up dead, their bodies dumped in a lake near the Korail slum in the capital's Banani area.

Police yesterday recovered the bodies of Hashi Begum, 25, a homemaker, and her son Nirob Hossain.

"It's my brother-in-law Rubel Hossain who killed my sister and my nephew… He called me over phone in the morning and said he dumped their bodies in the lake and asked us to recover those," Hashi's brother Mehedi Hasan, a day labourer, told The Daily Star yesterday.

Mehedi and his family members rushed to the location and found the bodies of Hashi and her son floating in the lake. They then informed police.

Earlier on Monday afternoon, Rubel, a construction worker, came to the slum to take Hashi back to his house in Cumilla. But she refused to go back.

Later at night, several elderly neighbours sat with Hashi and Rubel to mediate between the couple.

"If you send me back to Cumilla with my husband, he will kill me this time," Hashi told the mediators, requesting them not to put pressure on her.

She also said Rubel tortured her regularly and it became unbearable, Hashi's brother quoted her as saying at the mediation.

As Hashi and Rubel kept arguing, sitting on a bench at a yard inside the slum, Hashi's family members and the mediators went back to their huts. The couple was last seen around 1:00am yesterday.

Around 8:00am, Mehedi got the call from Rubel over his mobile phone.

"Rubel came to our house on Monday afternoon. He behaved well. He even brought fruits… If we had sensed trouble, we would not have allowed him to enter our house," Mehedi lamented.

"My sister wanted to live but her husband did not let her."

Mehedi said his sister married Rubel five years ago. Things between the couple went from bad to worse two years ago.

In the first week of this month, Hashi came to her mother's house at Korail slum to save herself from Rubel's torture. A week ago, Rubel took her back to his Cumilla house. But she returned to her mother's house with her son after a day as Rubel again tortured her, according to her family members.

Nur-E-Azam Mia, officer-in-charge of Banani Police Station, said they suspect that Rubel had killed his wife and son.

"We are trying to arrest him."

The bodies were sent to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsy.

Morgue sources said both the mother and the child were strangled.