Khadiza’s condition unchanged

As Khadiza’s condition remained critical at a hospital in the capital, demonstrators took to the streets in Sylhet for the third straight day yesterday demanding exemplary punishment for her attacker Badrul.

Her expatriate father and brother sought the prime minister’s intervention in this regard. The two arrived home in the morning.

“I hope the world would be free of men like Badrul,” Khadiza’s father Mashuk Miah told reporters in front of the hospital.

Meanwhile, a female student was allegedly threatened with consequences if she continued the movement.

Neurosurgeon Rezaus Sattar at Square Hospital, who carried out surgeries on the college girl, said the patient was in coma when she was brought to the hospital. Following admission, she was placed on ventilation.

“We will stop administering sleep-inducing drug on Friday [today] morning. By 4:00pm, we would have an idea of how much of her brain is functioning,” he told The Daily Star.

A student of Sylhet Government Women’s College, Khadiza Begum Nargis was brutally hacked by Badrul Alam with a machete on the campus of MC College on Monday. The 23-year-old had gone there to sit an examination.

Badrul is the senior assistant secretary of the Chhatra League unit at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (Sust). He is a fourth-year student of economics.

A part of the attack was filmed presumably by a bystander with a mobile phone. The video clip went viral.

In the clip, a youth is seen repeatedly hacking a girl lying on the ground. There were some bystanders nearby.

However, some students along with locals caught and beat up Badrul before handing him over to the police.

On Wednesday, he confessed before a Sylhet magistrate trying to kill Khadiza. He was suspended by the Sust the same day.

Meanwhile, Sunamganj High School yesterday sacked Badrul where he served as a part-time teacher.

PROTESTS CONTINUE

Students, teachers, rights activists and common people continued demonstrations in Sylhet yesterday, demanding justice for Khadiza.

Students and teachers of Sylhet Government Women’s College held a rally in the city around 10:00am and submitted a memorandum to the district administration, urging the prime minister, home minister and education minister to transfer the case to a speedy trial tribunal and hand down exemplary punishment to Badrul.

The memorandum called upon the government to ensure safety of female students across the country.

The protesters also blocked the Amberkhana-Zindabazar road in front of the college. The agitating students said they would continue the movement until Khadiza got justice.

Fazilatunnesa, a student of the college and the convener of Khadiza Nirjaton Protirodh Mancha, alleged that an anonymous caller phoned her mother and threatened that she would be hacked the way Khadiza had been.

“I am now worried about my safety,” she said.

In another demonstration, thousands of people in Khadiza’s village Hausha in Sylhet Sadar upazila blocked Sylhet-Sunamganj highway from 10:00am for over an hour. Law enforcers and the district administration later cleared the highway, assuring them of meeting their demands.

Students of MC College formed a human chain in front of the college and blocked Sylhet-Tamabil highway in Tilagarh area for several hours.

Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust and Sylhet Women’s College Alumni Association also formed human chains in front of Sylhet Central Shaheed Minar.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid and leaders of different political parties visited the Square Hospital yesterday to know about latest condition of Khadiza.

UNB reports: The home minister said the government would act to fast-track the trial of Badrul. He was talking to reporters after inaugurating the new building of Bera Model Police Station.

MOTHER WANTS SON PUNISHED

Badrul’s mother Dilara Begum said she wanted to see her son punished.

“How could he carry out such an attack?” she asked, while talking to a correspondent at her village home in Chhatak upazila of Sunamganj.

She prayed for Khadiza’s quick recovery.

Badrul’s younger brother Khalid Hossain told this newspaper that he was shocked by the brutality of his brother.

Source: The Daily Star