Florida police confirm recovered remains belong to Bangladeshi student Brishti

Police in Florida have officially confirmed that human remains recovered in a second search belong to Nahida Sultana Brishti, a Bangladeshi PhD student who had been missing since mid-April.

The Bangladesh Embassy in Washington confirmed the development on Friday, stating that Florida police notified Brishti’s brother of the identification. 

Brishti and another Bangladeshi PhD student at the University of South Florida, Jamil Ahmed Limon, went missing on April 16. Their families alerted authorities after being unable to reach them by phone.

The investigation took a grim turn on April 24 when police recovered Limon’s mutilated body near a bridge. Following the discovery, police arrested Limon’s roommate, Hisham Abugarbieh, who now faces two counts of first-degree premeditated murder. 

During the subsequent search for Brishti, investigators recovered remains from a local body of water, which have now been forensically matched to her.

The Bangladesh Embassy in Washington and the Consulate in Miami have initiated the process to repatriate Brishti’s remains following a formal request from her family. "We are working through our consulate in Miami to begin the process of sending Brishti’s body back to Bangladesh," the embassy stated in a press release.

Meanwhile, the repatriation of Jamil Ahmed Limon’s body is already underway. His remains are scheduled to be flown from Orlando International Airport on May 2 and are expected to arrive in Dhaka on May 4 via Dubai. 

The double murder has sent shockwaves through the Bangladeshi student community in Florida as authorities continue their legal proceedings against the suspect.