Bangladeshi female journalist’s body found in a lake, had made mysterious posts on Facebook before her death

The body of a 32-year-old female journalist was found in a lake in Bangladesh on Wednesday. According to local media reports, the deceased has been identified as Sara Rahnuma, who was a newsroom editor at a Bengali-language news channel. Rahnuma’s body was found in Dhaka’s Hatirjheel Lake early Wednesday. A passerby, who saw her in that condition, pulled the body out of the lake and took it to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). However, doctors declared her dead at around 2 pm local time.

Inspector Bachchu Mia, in-charge of the hospital police post, confirmed the recovery of his body. Before his death, Rahnuma had made two cryptic posts on his Facebook profile on Tuesday night. One at 10:24 pm and the other at 10:36 pm. In the second post, he had tagged a person named Faheem Faisal.

The first post was in Bengali, in which he wrote, ‘It is better to die than to live a life related to death.’

In another post, he posted photos of himself and Faisal, both of whom were wearing Bangladesh flag bands.

She wrote, ‘It was great to have a friend like you. May God always bless you. Hope you fulfill all your dreams soon. I know we had a lot of plans. Sorry, I will not be able to fulfill our plans. May God bless you in every aspect of your life.’

About an hour later, at 11:25 pm, a comment was made by Faheem Faisal, in which he requested Rahnuma not to harm himself. He wrote, ‘You are the best friend I have ever had. Don’t ruin this friendship! Don’t harm yourself.’

Police said that an investigation will be conducted to find out the cause of her death. However, no concrete reason has been found behind the death of Sara Rahnuma. Sajeeb Wazed, son of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has termed it as ‘another brutal attack on freedom of expression in Bangladesh’.

According to local media reports, Rahnuma’s husband Syed Shubhro said that on the day of the incident, she did not return from work at night. He was informed around 3 am that she had jumped into the Hatirjheel lake. Shubhro also said that Rahnuma had been wanting to separate from him for some time.

The couple had planned to finalise the divorce by visiting a Qazi office but were unable to do so due to the post-unrest situation in Bangladesh.