In March of 2017, Raudha Athif was a 20-year-old Maldivian model & second–year student at Islami Bank Medical College in Rajshahi, Bangladesh & she lived in a female hostel on the second floor of a six-story building that was mainly designed for foreign students. Raudha became an internet sensation in her country in 2014 after posting pictures of herself on social media; it was a shot that went viral of her emerging from the crystal blue sea, her eyes aqua blue. She got her first modeling gig with “Maldivian Girl With Aqua Blue Eyes’ ‘ which was shot by Maldivian photographer Sotti for a project & landed on the cover of Vogue India in October of 2016. Raudha was discovered by Vogue India’s beauty editor who was taken by her unique beauty. She wasn’t easy to track down because Raudha was a busy girl traveling between her home in the Maldives & Bangladesh where she went to school. When she was eventually tracked down via Facebook, staff was impressed by the fact that she wasn’t willing to let anything come between her goal of achieving her childhood dream of becoming a doctor. If the Vogue cover shoot conflicted with her exam dates, she was willing to forgo being on the cover. They quickly discovered that Raudha was warm & kind-hearted & wasn’t overly focused on where her beauty & modeling could take her. Raudha was one of six models from six nations of the Indian subcontinent for Vogue India’s Beauty in Diversity cover shoot.
Raudha was ecstatic when the October 2016 cover was released; she loved the whole experience of connecting with the Vogue crew & the five other models & loved the concept of celebrating models with unconventional good looks from neighboring countries.
Raudha saw modeling as a hobby rather than a career & was focusing on her studies to become a doctor with the dream of helping people. She scored a GPA-5 in her secondary school certificate exam from Hiriya School in the Maldives under UK’s Pearson Edexcel & achieved her higher secondary from Villa International High School, Maldives under UK’s Cambridge. When Raudha was younger, she wanted to be an environmentalist, participating in her first campaign at age fourteen & encouraged people to ban plastic bags in favor of more eco-friendly alternatives.
On Wednesday, March 29, 2017, at about noon, Mahmuda Begum who was the superintendent of the hostel where Raudha lived on campus, began hearing screams. When she went to investigate, she found students breaking into Raudha’s room which had been locked from the inside. They sensed something was wrong & found her body hanging from the ceiling fan with a scarf tied to her neck, one of the students cutting the scarf with a knife to take her body down, believing that she might still be alive. Other than the injury to her neck, Raudha had no other marks on her body which was sent to the Rajshahi Medical College Hospital morgue for an autopsy though initial beliefs were that she committed suicide. Mahmuda remembers that Raudha always looked happy & felt it was very hard to believe that she would commit suicide; she had seen her Tuesday after noon & they exchanged a smile. Raudha’s parents, mother, Aminath Muharrimath & father, Mohammed Athif, who is a doctor could not believe that their daughter committed suicide. Raudha’s 18-year-old brother, Rayyan Athif felt that his sister was murdered & the scene was set to look like a suicide, saying, “Raudha was a happy girl with a bright future & a promising career ahead of her. She was friendly, lighthearted, full of life.” No one that knew Raudha believed that she committed suicide. When the family viewed Raudha’s body at the morgue, they saw that her hands were in tightly-held fists & she had multiple bruises indicating strangulation
Rayyan said that his sister, who was Muslim, was a strong woman who wouldn’t back down & stood up for herself & others. He feels that she was targeted because she was a public figure who defended victims that were bullied over religious controversies. She had over 30,000 Instagram followers & used her platform to speak out in defense of those that were being bullied. Raudha followed the dress code on her college campus, wearing a veil that covered her face but her style of clothing was still considered as ‘immodest’ and ‘un-Islamic.’ She was criticized for wearing jeans & had been told multiple times not to do so. Raudha attended a Muslim college which has a lot of extremist connections & support & other students have been on the receiving end of bullying. Rayyan indicated that before his sister’s death, she had told the family that someone mixed sleeping pills into her drink only weeks earlier.
On the night of her death, students at the hostel saw Raudha leaving at 11 pm; she went to see the college’s doctor due to symptoms of vomiting & feeling ill. A girl from the hostel accompanied her & they returned at 11:30 pm. When family arrived to campus, the college authority wouldn’t allow them to meet the doctor she had seen or talk to security guards, claiming that she hadn’t gone to the hospital. When they were allowed to speak to security guards, family was informed that Raudha went out at 9 pm & the secretary of the college was not “officially aware” that Raudha went out at 11 pm, they were told she left at 9 pm due to an upset stomach.
The autopsy was completed on March 31 by three doctors who ruled Raudha’s death a suicide but her family rejects this. The first report identified strangulation marks which were later labeled as ‘birthmarks’ but family say that Raudha doesn’t have a birthmark on her neck. Family also argue the claim that students at the hostel had forced their way into Raudha’s room since there were no signs of forced entry. Family had gone into her room & checked the locks on the door; there were no signs of cracks or dents on the door. Authorities indicated that students were banging on her door & the sliding locks just slipped down which is said to be impossible. Family demonstrated this idea, banging on the doors, but the locks didn’t move an inch. Raudha’s funeral & burial was held on April 1 & was held in Bangladesh due to transportation issues.
Mohamad Athif, Raudha’s father, filed a murder case against one of his daughter’s classmates & friends in the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s (CMM) court in Rajshahi on April 10, 2017. 21-year-old Seerat Parveen, an Indian citizen & second year student at Raudha’s school was being accused of her murder. Seerat lived in a room adjacent to Raudha though another report indicated they lived in separate buildings. The complaint indicated that Seerat committed murder because of hostility between her & Raudha. In the complaint, Mohamad indicated that when they observed their daughter’s body at the morgue, they noted deep ligature marks on her neck as well as finger marks from a person who was right handed.
When they went to the dormitory where Raudha was staying, they were told by college authorities that her door had been closed from within & Raudha was found hanging from the ceiling fan by a scarf; they were told that her body was brought down by Seerat who was the only person who witnessed Raudha’s body hanging from the fan. It was reported that Seerat had seen Raudha’s body hanging through a window & broke into the room. When others got to the scene, Raudha’s body was lying on her bed. Again, there were no signs of forced entry & testing the locks while inside the room, showed they didn’t budge when the door was manipulated.
He also didn’t understand why she had taken her body down before the police arrived; other reports said that she thought Raudha was still alive & could be saved. Reports also indicate that the fan was too high for a person to reach even if they stood on a chair. Raudha also told her mom one week before she died that it was Seerat who mixed sedatives into her juice.
Review of texts between the girls found that they were threatening in nature. In the complaint, Mohamad indicated that after Raudha had died, Seerat got Raudha’s iPhone & Instagram passwords & deleted her name from Raudha’s followers. The Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) was aware of the conversations with Seerat but felt they were not relevant to the case. It is Mohamad’s belief that Seerat strangled his daughter to death while she sat in a chair. She did it from behind or she was strangled outside the room & brought back in & kept in a supine position on the bed. On the evening that Raudha died, the CCTV camera was not functioning though the previous day & night as well as the following day, it had been. The medical college authorities indicated that they were unaware that it wasn’t working.
Maldivian police officials met with Bangladesh’s Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) as well as the medical college authorities due to the suspicious circumstances of Raudha’s death. The windows, doors & contents of her room were checked & her cell phone & laptop were sent to the Criminal Investigation Department in Dhaka for analysis. Amin Hossain who is the assistant commissioner of RMP Detective Branch was quoted saying, “There is a 50% chance that she did not commit suicide.” Raudha was exhumed for a second autopsy though due to decomposition, a definitive opinion could not be determined & the possibility of suicidal hanging could not be excluded.
Raudha’s family accused Bangladeshi police of negligence & felt that there was possibility of tampering of evidence, illogical explanation of strangulation marks, delay of reviewing phone records, inspection of the crime scene & refusal to question security. They also felt that suspects weren’t properly questioned & believed the investigation was incompetent.
Local media indicated that only one week before Raudha’s death, police detained 29 men who belonged to Chhatra Shibir which is a student Islamist organization from her medical college. Reports indicate that there’s no indication to suggest that the group was linked to her death, but Maldivian blogger, Muju Naeem has written about the inconsistencies surrounding Raudha’s death & feels there is extensive corruption within the system. He feels the system is run by extremists & there could be a cover-up, saying that he is frequently threatened for talking about it. The threats are so frequent that he had been living in self-exile at an undisclosed location after receiving death threats for writing about religious extremism & secularism.
The PBI said in the final report of Raudha’s death ruled out the possibility of murder & maintained death by suicide. The report indicated that evidence gathered proved her death by suicide was due to her ‘utter despair’ over the breakup with her boyfriend. It indicated that in her last recorded WhatsApp conversation, only hours before her death, she wrote “You killed me” to her boyfriend, Shahi Ghani. Shahi is also Maldivian & was studying molecular biology & pathology of viruses in London Imperial College in the UK.
Raudha & Shahi had an affair four months before her death & spent two weeks together in India. The PBI learned of their relationship & analyzed the photos found on her phone, laptop & 17,000 pages of WhatsApp & Facebook conversations the two shared. Reports indicated that on the night before Raudha died, she discovered that Shahi was cheating on her & attempted suicide by taking sedatives on the night of March 28, 2017. It’s said that she was treated at the hospital at her medical college. PBI also found the presence of rat poison on her bed, but indicated that Raudha had not consumed it.
In the early morning hours of March 29, she wrote to Shahi, “I only loved you, you never loved me. You’re a terrible human being. You’ve done irreparable damage. There’s nothing left.. I feel hollow. I feel dead.” It’s reported that she took her life sometime after she wrote him, “You killed me” at 2:30 am. The PBI was not bringing any allegations against Shahi as he isn’t a citizen of Bangladesh.
Change.org formed a petition for a thorough investigation into Raudha’s death by the Central Investigative Department of Bangladesh; it is currently closed with 7,216 signatures. A July 2022 article indicated that a Rajshai court ordered a re-investigation of the case again bringing the point that there was no damage to the door to Raudha’s room as well as no damage to the fan that she was reportedly hanging from, the report indicating that if a person who weighed at least 40kg or 88# was hanging from it, damage or markings would be expected.
Because these things could not be explained, the court ordered the re-investigation. Another article indicates this will be the sixth time the case has been investigated.
References:
- The Sun: Dorm Room Horror Vogue cover girl, 20, who became a medical student ‘commits suicide’ in her uni halls as horrified friends find her body
- https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/dhaka-losing-its-greenery-3077001
- The Sun: ‘It Was No Suicide’ Vogue cover girl Raudha Athif, 20, who ‘killed herself’ in Bangladesh was actually murdered by extremists for not wearing Islamic clothing, her family claims
- The Daily Star: Raudha gave in to her despair: PBI final report
- Vogue India: Vogue remembers cover girl Raudha Athif
- The Independent: Case filed against Kashmiri classmate
- NDTV: Father of Maldivian Model Accuses Her Indian Friend Of Murder
- Just News BD: Raudha’s father terms PBI report as ‘fantasy’
- Darpan: Maldivian Model Raudha Athif’s Father Accuses Kashmiri Friend Of Her Murder
- TBS News: Vogue model Raudha murder case to be re-investigated
- The Daily Star: Suicide
