A Delhi court on Monday accepted a closure report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in a case about the disappearance of Jawaharlal Nehru University student Najeeb Ahmed.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Jyoti Maheshwari of the Rouse Avenue Courts said that the agency had looked into all plausible avenues available.

The judge, however, expressed hope that Ahmed would be found soon. She said that the CBI can reopen the investigation if it finds credible information about his whereabouts.

“This court expresses its regret that while the proceedings in the present case end with this closure report, a closure for Najeeb’s mother and other loved ones, still eludes us,” the judge said.

She added: “The quest for truth is the foundation of every criminal investigation. Yet, there are cases where the investigation conducted cannot achieve its logical conclusion, despite the best efforts of the investigating machinery.”

Ahmed, a Masters student at JNU, went missing on October 15, 2016. He was spotted getting into an autorickshaw on the campus the morning after he was allegedly beaten up by a group of students belonging to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

About a month later, the police claimed that Ahmed had been seen getting out of an autorickshaw near the Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi. The trail then went cold. The case made no headway even though it was passed on from the local police to the Delhi police’s Crime Branch and, eventually, to the CBI.