Police to seek seven-day remand for 'friend' over death of university student Rumpa

Police are set to request a 7-day remand to grill Abdur Rahman Saikat, a friend of Rubaiyat Sharmin Rumpa, over the death of the Stamford University student.

Saikat was apprehended in connection with a murder case on Saturday, three days after Rumpa was found dead on a Dhaka street. He will be produced in a Dhaka court on Sunday, according to police.

"We will be seeking seven days to question Saikat in custody," said Deputy Commissioner Rajib Al Masud of the DMP's Detective Branch.

Rumpa’s body was found on a street in the capital’s Siddheswari on Dec 4. A case of murder was started by Ramna Police Station's Sub-Inspector Abul Khair on the same day against unidentified suspects owing to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death.

The authorities only identified the body as Rumpa's a day later when it was revealed that she was the daughter of Rokon Uddin, a police inspector posted in Habiganj. She lived with her mother and brother in Dhaka's Malibagh, bdnews24.com reports.

Students and teachers of Stamford University subsequently launched protests demanding a proper investigation into the death of Rumpa. One of Rumpa’s classmates later told a TV station that Rumpa had been seeing Saikat, 22, a BBA student of Adamjee Cantonment College, for several months before they broke up recently.

Police later detained Saikat from the capital's Khilgaon on Saturday.

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.