During her interaction with the SIT officers and several of Faizan’s friends, Rehana Ahmed discovered that her slain son had experienced ragging at the campus, a distressing detail previously unknown to the family.
Team Clarion
KOLKATA — Rehana Ahmed, the distressed mother of the IIT Kharagpur student Faizan Ahmed, whose partially decomposed body was found inside his hostel room on the campus in October last year, has shown remarkable grit and courage in her several meetings with the Special Investigation Team (SIT) officers investigating the death of the 23-year-old youth.
Rehana has been actively pursuing those who “murdered” her son and is sure her quest for justice will finally end in the arrest and punishment of the killers.
During the most recent meeting earlier this month (December 2), the SIT officers questioned Rehana and her lawyer on various aspects of Faizan’s life, including his childhood, behaviour, dietary habits, and if he was undergoing any treatment for depression.
Officials of the SIT, headed by senior IPS officer Jayaraman, shared a list of suspects with Rehana and discussed in detail those who could have been possibly involved in the killing. They also provided her with suspected phone numbers, seeking her assistance in narrowing down the leads, media reports said on Wednesday.
On December 6, during Rehana’s visit to IIT Kharagpur, the SIT handed over all of Faizan’s belongings to her. However, she expressed her disappointment that no official from IIT Kharagpur approached them during their visit to collect Faizan’s possessions.
Rehana’s hopes have been bolstered by the assurance from the SIT that justice will ultimately prevail. During her interaction with the SIT officers and several of Faizan’s friends, she discovered that the slain IITian had experienced ragging at the campus, a distressing detail previously unknown to the family.
The case of Faizan’s death took a dramatic turn when Faizan’s parents disputed the initial ruling of suicide.
After going through the ‘second autopsy report’ Justice Rajasekhar Mantha of the Calcutta High Court observed it as a ‘homicide’.
A resident of Tinsukia, Faizan, who had cracked the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) in 2020 with 11th AIR, was also getting a scholarship from the Assam government.
The first postmortem report of the 23-year-old youth could not ascertain any concrete cause for the death. No poisonous substance was found inside nor was any hanging mark outside Faizan’s body.
In fact, after going through the first autopsy report, retired forensic expert Ajay Kumar Gupta, who was instructed by the high court to submit a report, claimed that the video clippings of the first postmortem report indicated a case of hematoma. At the request of Dr. Gupta, the high court ordered a second autopsy of Faizan’s body. The body was exhumed from Dibrugarh and flown to Calcutta Medical College Hospital, where a postmortem was performed on May 27.
The SIT is expected to present its report on December 18.
