Published : 10 Jan 2023, 05:55 PM
Updated : 10 Jan 2023, 07:06 PM
Amatullah Bushra, a friend of Fardin Noor Parash whose body was found in the Shitalakkhya river, has been released from jail on bail two months after being arrested over the BUET student's death.
She left the Kashimpur Women’s Central Jail around 2 pm on Tuesday, said Jailer Farhana Akter.
Judge Tahsin Iftekhar of the Dhaka Additional Metropolitan Sessions Court-7 granted her interim bail on Sunday.
Her bail will remain in place until police submit the investigation report in the case. Bushra was arrested at her Banasree home on Nov 10 in connection with the death of Fardin, who was initially presumed to have been murdered.
“She was released in the afternoon after we verified the documents that arrived from the court,” Farhana said, adding that her father Manjurul Islam picked her up from prison.
On Nov 16, a court scrapped a bail petition from Bushra after she was interrogated in police custody for five days and sent her to jail. She had another bail plea rejected by a magistrate on Dec 5, before taking the matter to the judge’s court.
The petition was heard on Jan 5 and the court set Sunday for the decision.
On Dec 14, investigators said Fardin took his own life by jumping into the river from Sultana Kamal Bridge in Demra. The conclusion drew criticism from Fardin’s family and from his peers at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, who refused to believe he had died by suicide.
Fardin, 24, left his home in Dhaka’s Demra after lunch on Nov 4, saying he would stay overnight with friends at a residential hall to study and return home after an exam the following day, according to his family. The 24-year-old’s body was found floating in the Shitalakkhya River in Narayanganj on Nov 7.
A student of East West University’s English department, Bushra knew Fardin, who was a third-year civil engineering student, through their involvement in the debate team, but she claimed the two did not have a romantic relationship.
There was video footage of the two of them together on the day Fardin went missing, but there were no indications that she murdered him or forced him to do anything untoward.
Fardin's father Nur Uddin Rana initially filed a general diary with the Rampura Police Station before lodging a murder case after his body was found, naming Bushra as the sole suspect.
Nur Uddin has said he was unconvinced that his son could have committed suicide.
