Amsterdam student killed because she was pregnant, Prosecutor believes

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) believes that 22-year-old student Sumanta Bansi was killed by suspects Dwarka B. and his son Manodj because she was carrying Manodj's child. "It was a disgrace to Dwarka and family honor was at stake," the prosecutor said in the first pro-forma hearing against the two men on Tuesday.

Bansi came to the Netherlands from Suriname in 2016 to study biomedical sciences at the University of Amsterdam. In that same year, she moved in with the B. family in Hoorn. They were acquaintances of her family.

In 2017, Bansi got pregnant with the child of Manodj, a married man in his forties. Messages to her dean and others showed that Manodj and his father pressured her to get an abortion. In February 2018, Bansi became pregnant again. This time she was determined to keep and raise the child. According to the OM, this "caused disagreement in the household, to say the least."

In an email to her dean, Bansi wrote that the house was "noisy" again. "So I assume that they are going to do the same as last time," she wrote, referring to Dwarka and Manodj pressuring her to get an abortion, according to the OM. A short time later, around 18 February 2018, Bansi disappeared.

Shortly after Bansi's disappearance was featured on Opsporing Verzocht, the police tapped a phone call in which Manodj said: "Aiaiai, I just killed her", according to the OM. He also spoke to his brother about a discarded murder weapon and the two discussed how long it took for a buried body to decompose.

The police believe that Bansi is buried in the Robbenoordbos, though multiple searches in the large Noord-Holland forest so far turned up nothing.