A Dhaka court set next Sunday (January 8) to pass its order on the latest bail application on behalf of Amatullah Bushra, who has been languishing in jail for almost two months now in a homicide case filed over the death of Buet student Fardin Noor (Parash), despite investigation agencies failing to find any evidence connecting her to her friend's death. Judge Tahsin Iftekhar of Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court-7 set the date after hearing the bail petition, according to two members of Bushra’s legal team, lawyers Mokhesur Rahman and Abdur Rahman Hawladar. Unlike Bushra's previous bail applications, which were opposed by the state on advice of the investigation agency - which was treating Fardin's death as a murder - this time the hearing took place in the context of both the Detective Branch, the court-appointed investigation agency, and the Rapid Action Battalion, which carried out its own 'shadow' investigation, having decisively shifted away from their earlier position that Fardin was murdered. Since mid-December, the two agencies have converged around a conclusion that Fardin committed suicide. That did not stop the state from opposing Bushra's bail yet again today though.  Bushra, a 3rd year student of East West University who became friends with Fardin on the debate circuit, was the last known person to have seen Fardin on the day of his disappearance (Nov. 4). In fact they were together for hours before Fardin dropped her off at her student accommodation in Rampura close to 10pm - exactly as Bushra had said from the start and CCTV footage later confirmed. Police picked her up on November 10, three days after Fardin's body washed up in the Shitalakkhya River, and hours after Fardin's father filed a case alleging murder - where the sole accused to be named was Bushra. It may be mentioned here that initial reports and even statements by forensic doctors who dealt with Fardin's body at Narayanganj General Hospital, made a very strong case for a homicide. Even the investigation agencies were bought on this version of events.  Bushra was taken on remand subsequently for five days, and her lawyers today reiterated how nothing untoward or suspicious was uncovered. Even the friendship the two shared was found to be platonic, her lawyers noted while talking to reporters outside the court premises. They prayed before the court for bail on humanitarian grounds. State counsel Advocate Shamim Hasan, however, still found reason to oppose her bail petition - saying that if released despite being an accused in a murder investigation, she may "influence the witnesses of the case" while out on bail. Fardin’s father Noor Uddin Rana was present at the court during the hearing, as it wrapped up without any order, nor any date for it. Later in  the evening it was announced that an order would be passed on Sunday, the court's next working day. Read more: DB to apprise court that Bushra has no link to Fardin’s death, says its chief According to the investigation agencies' last version of how things transpired, Fardin committed suicide by jumping off the Sultana Kamal Bridge into the Shitalakkhya River around 2:37am on November 5, some 4-and-a-half hours after he dropped off Bushra. They have produced grainy, almost pitch dark CCTV footage in support of their claims, from an establishment at the bottom of the bridge. It shows an unrecognisable figure (too dark) appear at the side of the bridge at the said time, climb over the railing and dangle off it for some moments, before falling into the river. Fardin never learned to swim, according to DB.  But it's all very circumstantial. The only reason investigators can claim the dark figure falling into the river is Fardin, is because cellphone tracking of his phone number placed Fardin on the bridge at the time. Prior to that his phone had pinged various towers indicating his presence in Keraniganj, Johnson Road, Gulistan and Jatrabari. In Jatrabari police were able to get their hands on CCTV footage of him getting into a Laguna around 2:03am. His back is to the camera as he walks towards the laguna, which raised questions initially as to whether it is really him, but it's one of the few points on which the family agrees with the police.  Nooruddin Rana told UNB he does believe it is Fardin who gets on the Laguna, but adds: "The way he is walking shows he was tense, disturbed by something. He was in distress." Investigators have been less than convincing however, on what could have driven an intelligent young man with a seemingly bright future ahead of him to suicide. The DB chief's attempt at posthumous psychoanalysis came in for criticism as he brought up everything from Fardin's fondness for the novels of Albert Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche (nihilist philosophers) to random quotations attributed to Fardin, purportedly showing suicidal tendencies. Some of their interpretations clearly miss, or perhaps deliberately distort, what is meant, or overstate their significance, his friends say.  The Detective Branch also came across as insensitive when bringing up his family situation at home, and his supposedly slipping - although still far from disastrous - grades at BUET, as contributing factors to his suicide. Read more: Fardin Noor: Home Minister puts faith in RAB, DB investigation

Buet student Fardin Noor Parash died by suicide, said Additional Commissioner (Detective Branch) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Mohammad Harunur Rashid on Wednesday. He made this claim at a press conference at the DB office in the capital this evening. The DB chief said they scrutinized the footages regarding Fardin’s movement before his death. “Fardin didn’t go to Chonpara,” he claimed. Read: Law enforcers have made progress in Fardin murder probe: Rab On November 4, the day he went missing, Fardin dropped his friend Amatullah Bushra, a 3rd year student of East West University who is now in jail, in Rampura around 9pm, said Harunur Rashid. After that he went to a bridge in Keraniganj and then to Johnson Road, Gulistan and Jatrabari respectively till 2am. Then he went to Sultana Kamal Bridge around 2:34 am. He was alone on the bridge till 2:37am, he said. “He didn’t know swimming and we believe that Fardin committed suicide by jumping off Sultana Kamal Bridge,” he said. “We have a proof of the sound of his jumping in the river from the bridge.” Besides, the DB chief said he was mentally disturbed due to his poor result. Besides, he was supposed to go to Spain to attend a competition but couldn’t manage the money for going there. “Also, no injury mark was found in his body as per the inquest (Surathal) report. So there is no evidence that Fardin was murdered,” said the DB chief. Read: It’s disappointing, no headway in probe in a month, says Fardin’s father Fardin was a 3rd year student of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology’s civil engineering department and a resident of Qutubpur area in Narayanganj's Fatullah. Police recovered Fardin’s body from the Shitalakhkhya River, behind a cotton mill at Siddhirganj, on November 7, three days after he went missing. Sheikh Farhad, a physician at Narayanganj General Hospital where the autopsy was done, said there were several injury marks on Fardin’s head and body. Kazi Nuruddin Rana, Fardin’s father, filed a case in connection with his son’s killing with Rampura Police Station on the same day and the case was later transferred to Detective Branch (DB) Police.

A Dhaka court on Thursday placed Amatullah Bushra, who was arrested on Thursday morning in a case over the death of Buet student Fardin Noor Parash, on a five- day remand. Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mehedi Hasan passed the order when Golam Mawla, investigation officer of the case and Inspector of Rampura Police Station,  produced her before the court seeking a seven-day remand for her. Earlier, police arrested Bushra, a friend of Fardin-  whose body was recovered from the Shitalakhkhya River on November 7- from her Banasree home in Dhaka today. Police conducted a drive at Bushra’s house and arrested her in the morning, Rafiqul Islam, officer-in-charge of Rampura Police Station, said. Earlier in the day, Kazi Nuruddin Rana, Fardin’s father, filed a case against Bushra and several unidentified people in connection with his son’s death with Rampura Police Station, said the OC. Bushra is a 3rd year student of East West University. Police recovered Fardin's body from the Shitalakhkhya river, behind a cotton mill at Siddhirganj, on November 7, three days after he went missing. Read more: Deceased Buet student Fardin’s friend Bushra arrested On November 4, Fardin left home and did not return. He was also unreachable on the phone. Later, Fardin’s father lodged a general diary with Rampura Police in this regard. Fardin was a 3rd year student of Buet’s civil engineering department and a resident of Qutubpur area in Narayanganj's Fatullah. On Tuesday, Sheikh Farhad, a physician at Narayanganj General Hospital where the autopsy was done, said there were several injury marks on Fardin’s head and body. Fardin’s father on Tuesday said that his son was murdered and demanded justice.