Deep sent to jail after third round of remand in Tahsif murder case

A court has ordered Ahmed Shahriar Reza Deep, the close younger friend arrested in the murder case over the death of former Bangladesh Air Force Flight Lieutenant Tahsif Soury, to be sent to jail after the end of his third round of remand.

On Saturday (7 November), Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Monirul Islam rejected his bail application and passed the order.

On the day, Deep was produced before the court after a total of 10 days of remand in three phases. The investigation officer of the case, Firoz Uddin, inspector of the Tongi river police outpost in Gazipur, then applied to keep him in jail until the investigation is complete.

On the other side, defence lawyer Mutasim Billah argued in favour of his bail application. After hearing both sides, the court rejected the bail plea and ordered Deep to be sent to jail.

On the interrogation, the river police said Deep had given several important pieces of information about the case. However, for the sake of the investigation, that information is being kept secret while it is verified. During questioning, he very cleverly avoided answering several questions and remained silent in some cases, police said.

It may be mentioned that Tahsif went missing after leaving home in the evening of 27 October at the call of his junior friend Deep. The next afternoon, river police recovered his body from the Rajabari Ghat area of the Turag river.

Tahsif's father, K M Enayetul Karim, filed a case at the capital's Uttarkhan police station on the night of 30 October, naming unknown persons as accused over his son's death. Police later arrested Deep as an accused in the case.

On 31 October, Deep was taken on a four-day remand after being shown arrested in the Tahsif murder case. On 3 November he was taken on remand again for three days, and on 5 November the court granted a further three days of remand in a third phase.

In addition, on 1 November the court granted four days of remand for another accused in the case, Jerica Tasnim Disha, and three more days on 4 November. She is currently on remand.

On the night of 29 October, the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) took Deep into custody from the third floor of a house in Block B of Babar Road in Mohammadpur. Before going missing, Tahsif had spent about six hours with Deep, his younger friend described as being like a brother to him.

According to the case statement, on 27 October Tahsif Soury left home at around 6pm at the call of a junior named Deep. When he did not return even late at night, his mother repeatedly tried to reach him on his mobile phone, and he said he would return shortly. Later, at 1:35am, a voice message was sent from his phone to his mother's phone through Messenger saying, 'I have set off, I am coming.' But even by the next afternoon, he had not returned.

Tahsif's father said that at around 5:20pm on 28 October, river police from Uttarkhan informed him by mobile phone that his son's body had been recovered from the Turag river near Rajarbarir Ghat in the Uttarkhan area. After the initial post-mortem procedures at Shaheed Suhrawardy Hospital, river police handed the body to him at noon on 29 October. After the necessary religious rites, he was buried in the afternoon of 29 October at the cemetery in Sector 12 of Uttara.