Police detain ‘friend’ over death of university student Rumpa

Police detectives have detained a young man linking him as a “friend” of Stamford University student Rubaiyat Sharmin Rumpa, who was found dead on a Dhaka street in mysterious circumstances.

Deputy Commissioner Masudur Rahman, a spokesman for Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch, said Abdur Rahman Saikat was taken into police custody from Khilgaon for questioning.

Rumpa’s family alleged that the girl was murdered in a planned way. One of Rumpa’s classmates told a TV station that Rumpa had been seeing a young man for several months, but they broke up recently.

Police confirmed that Saikat was the so-called former boyfriend of Rumpa. The 22-year-old is studying BBA at Adamjee Cantonment College. He told Somoy TV that he met Rumpa on the day of her death and expressed his intention to end the relationship.

Besides Ramna Police Station, the Detective Branch is also investigating the case, in which the death of Rumpa is mentioned as a murder, but the investigators said they were waiting for the post-mortem examination report to confirm whether it was a murder, or suicide or accident.

The case has baffled police who are yet to find out how Rumpa’s body ended up on a street in the capital’s Siddheswari, about half a kilometre from her home at Shantibagh, on Dec 4 night.

She is presumed to have died after falling from a multi-storey building. The building in front of which Rumpa’s body was found is home to some students of the university. They live on the ground and second floors, but no one could give any information about her.

The teachers and students of the university have continued protests against Rumpa’s death demanding a “proper” investigation.

She lived with her mother and brother in Dhaka while her father Rokon Uddin, a police inspector, has been posted in Habiganj.

The family said Rumpa used to tutor two students, which is why she left home on Wednesday afternoon.

She returned around 6:30pm, but did not enter her house. Instead, she called her family and asked them to send her a pair of old sandals.

When one of her cousins gave her the sandals, she handed him her new sandals, earrings, ring and mobile phone before heading out again. She was found dead several hours later and the family identified the body the next day.