CID to exhume Raudha's body today

Raudha Athif's father demands “logical and scientific explanation”forhis daughter's death as the Criminal Investigation Department is set to exhume her body for a second autopsy today, 27 days after she was found dead.

“I want to know the truth how my daughter died. I will believe only when the explanations are logical and scientific,” Raudha's father Mohamed Athif said at a press conference held at Rajshahi Press Club yesterday morning.

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Athif, a physician, said he had seen strangulation marks on Raudha's neck that showed his 21-year-old daughter was killed. He also stood with a placard in hand demanding justice in front of the press club for several minutes.

His daughter, a second year MBBS student of Islami Bank Medical College in Rajshahi, was found dead at her dormitory room on March 29. Raudha, who featured in Vogue India cover as a model, was buried at Hetomkhan Graveyard in the city on April 1.

The CID has taken necessary preparations to exhume the body in the morning.

Associate Professor Amirul Chowdhury of Forensic Department of Shaheed M Monsur Ali Medical College in Sirajganj has already arrived in Rajshahi to lead the newly formed three-member medical board for the autopsy to be held at Rajshahi Medical College morgue. Other members of the committee are associate professors Mahbub Hafiz and Hafizur Rahman.

Athif yesterday told the press briefing that he was trying to include his own forensic experts in the medical board.

He also described her mother's appeal for not exhuming the body as an emotional statement.

“The autopsy is required for justice. Even as her father it was not easy for me to agree to a second autopsy and I am showing courage to seek explanations,” he said.

He termed the first autopsy done on March 31 by three forensic experts “unprofessional”.

The report did not mention any X-ray of her body and failed to explain many important conditions of her bones, arteries and soft tissues, he said.

On forensic experts' explanation of bruises to be her birthmarks, he said, “It was an insult to science and to justice. There is a limit to tell lies.”

Even the inquest report did not avoid those marks, but those marks went missing in the autopsy report, he said.

Prof Mansur Rahman, head of the first medical board, saidthey had reported only the truth. “We avoided extra examinations as we found those unnecessary,” he told The Daily Star.

They found rigor mortis (stiffness sign of death) of her body in the lower part, while her tongue was slightly bitten in teeth, cyanosed mouth and one non-continuous, oblique ligature mark, which are signatures of suicide, he said.

Her skin and soft tissues around ligature mark were hard, whiteand glistening, her hyoid bone and other neck structures were intact proving no external or internal injuries.

They reported that the death was due to asphyxia following hanging and no sign of sexual abuse was found.