An Islamabad court on Monday sent Muhammad Noman into police custody for five days in the Islamabad student suicide case. Geo News reported that Judicial Magistrate Zunaira Zafar passed the order at the District and Sessions Courts. The case concerns Laiba Ijaz, a graduate of the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI), who is reported to have died by suicide after learning that US study documents arranged for her were not genuine.
Officers arrested Noman in the capital's H-13 sector before producing him in court. The investigating officer asked for time to review the facts, test the evidence already gathered, and establish what role he is alleged to have played. The officer said items linked to him would also be examined. Geo News reported that the inquiry has turned up evidence of alleged online fraud and of the blackmailing of women.
Why police sought custody
A physical remand is a short period of police custody that a magistrate allows so an investigation can continue. It is not a finding of guilt. According to Geo News, the officer told the court that early findings were not enough and that Noman's alleged part in the matter still had to be verified.
The same report, citing sources, says Noman had worked at the Anti-Corruption Establishment in Quetta and was suspended, and that he had also worked for a company in Islamabad. Those details are attributed to sources. They do not appear as conclusions of the remand hearing.
What the complaint says about the money
Police have unsealed the first information report (FIR), the written complaint that starts a criminal case in Pakistan. Geo News said it was registered on October 10 at Ramna police station. The complainant is Laiba's father, Muhammad Ijaz, who alleges that Noman and a woman named Aiza are responsible for his daughter's death.
In the visa fraud case described in the FIR, Noman met Laiba near Blue Area about six or seven months earlier. He interviewed her, presented himself as an influential person and a high official in Islamabad, and offered to arrange a study visa for the United States. The price they agreed was Rs9.3 million.
Ijaz says he paid Rs2.1 million in cash in front of witnesses, and that Laiba later transferred Rs2.9 million from her bank account to Noman. Those two payments total Rs5 million. Noman afterwards brought travel documents to Ijaz's shop and showed a receipt for a $20,000 transaction, which he linked to a bank statement.
The complaint says both the documents and the receipt were fake. After Ijaz questioned him, Noman stopped taking his calls. Aiza, whom Noman had introduced to Laiba, continued to demand more money, and the FIR says the pressure left Laiba under extreme mental stress. Her body was reportedly found hanging beside a road in G-10, an area under Ramna police.
What is still open
Geo News did not report a response from Noman or from Aiza, or the exact offence written on the FIR. Police now have five days to question Noman and to check the payments and papers described in court. The report does not give a date for his next production before the magistrate. Until a court settles the facts, the father's account in the Islamabad student suicide case remains an allegation.
