Beat him until he was motionless
Anik, an accused in Abrar killing, tells court; Buet protests relaxed for 2 days for admission tests; 3 dorm rooms sealed; circular issued on meeting demands
Buet unit Chhatra League leader Anik Sarkar yesterday confessed that he and some other accused kept hitting Abrar Fahad with cricket stumps until he became motionless.
In his confessional statement, the information and research secretary of the unit also said he beat Abrar indiscriminately in two phases and stopped only after the victim vomited several times, said court and police sources.
Anik, a batch-15 student of the university’s mechanical engineering department, was sent to jail after Metropolitan Magistrate Atiqul Islam recorded the statement.
With Anik, three leaders of Buet BCL have given confessional statement in Abrar Fahad killing case.
The other two are Deputy Social Welfare Secretary Ifti Mosharraf Shakal and Sports Secretary Meftahul Islam Zion of the same unit.
In his statement recorded on Thursday, Shakal, a batch-16 student of the university’s biomedical engineering department, said it was Anik who beat Abrar the most. He said Anik struck Abrar over 100 times with a stump on his knees, legs, soles of feet and arms.
On Friday, Zion, a batch-15 student of the naval architecture and marine engineering department, told a magistrate that he also beat up Abrar with a stump.
Investigators earlier had said Anik hit Abrar around 200 times with a cricket stump.
Abrar, a second-year student of Buet’s electrical and electronic engineering department, was beaten to death by a group of BCL leaders at the university’s Sher-e-Bangla Hall during October 6 night and early hours of October 7.
The next day, his father filed a murder case against 19 Buet students and several other unnamed accused with Chawkbazar police station.
The gruesome murder triggered a firestorm of protest on university campuses across the country.
Law enforcers suspect Abrar was attacked because of one of his recent Facebook posts, which seemed critical of some recent deals with India.
Yesterday, Anik told the court that he and some other students suspected Abrar to be a Shibir activist because of a Facebook post of the victim. They decided to beat Abrar up a few days before his murder.
After Abrar returned to his room at Sher-e-Bangla Hall from his home in Kushtia on October 6, the accused decided to call him to a room.
As per the decision, Abrar was called in room number 2011 around 8:30pm that day. There, he was beaten indiscriminately for several hours which led to his death, said court and police sources.
Meanwhile, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police has formed a six-member committee, headed by joint commissioner of the detective branch, to assist the murder investigation.
PROTESTS RELAXED
Agitating Buet students demanding justice for Abrar yesterday relaxed the protests for today and tomorrow taking the university’s admission tests into consideration.
At a sit-in, the demonstrators also said they would provide all sorts of assistance to the examinees and their guardians during the tests tomorrow.
““We are relaxing the protests for the time being as the process of implementing our demands has started,” a representative of the students said.
Meanwhile, Buet in a statement said the admission test would be held as per the schedule.
After the murder, the students were protesting over a 10-point demand. But after a meeting with Vice Chancellor Prof Saiful Islam on Friday evening, the protesters are now pressing for five demands, which could be met by the university authorities in a short time.
The demands include issuance of circular on expulsion of Abrar’s killers, cancellation of dormitory seats of illegal occupants, sealing of offices of political organisations and assurance from university that it will provide compensations to Abrar’s family and bear all the costs of running the legal battle over the murder.
The demands also include opening of a dedicated website for posting complaints about ragging and other forms of torture on the campus, installation of CCTV cameras on all floors of every hall.
The university authorities took steps to meet some of the 10-point demands. In line with one of the demands, Buet on Friday banned all political organisations and their activities.
The authorities yesterday issued five separate officials circulars on the matters.
In one of the circular, the university’s Directorate of Students’ Welfare said it would start evicting illegal occupants from halls and seal off offices of student organisations yesterday.
Highest punishment would be handed down to those involved in ragging.
The university has suspended 19 students. They will be expelled after an ongoing probe and in line with the decision of a disciplinary committee and the university syndicate, one of the circular said.
The university authorities will bear all the costs of running the legal battle over the murder and provide necessary compensations to Abrar’s family, another circular said.
The university also said a dedicated website for making complaints would be opened soon.
BUET SEALS OFF THREE ROOMS
The Buet authorities yesterday sealed off three rooms of two dormitories for illegal occupancy.
BCL Buet unit President Jami-us-Sani told The Daily Star that he lived at room 321 of Ahsan Ullah Hall, but the room was sealed off yesterday as his studentship ended a while ago.
The room of BCL’s Buet unit General Secretary Mehedi Hasan Rasel — room no. 3021 of Sher-e-Bangla hall — was also sealed off over the same reason, Jami confirmed.
Rasel was arrested in connection with the murder.
Another room of Ahsan Ullah Hall — room No. 121 — was sealed off because it was being used as an office of BCL, Jami further said.
Earlier in the morning, the agitating students resumed the demonstration for the sixth consecutive day as per their earlier announcement.
The agitating students erased graffiti drawn by Chhatra League on the boundary walls of a hall and replaced it with another one depicting Abrar murder.
ONE MORE ARRESTED
Police yesterday arrested another accused in the case — Moyaj Abu Hurayra, 20, a Buet student — from the city’s Uttara.
With Moyaj, the law enforcement agencies have so far arrested a total of 19 people in connection with the murder.
Besides, a Dhaka court yesterday put another accused in the case, Majedul Islam Majed, on a five-day remand. He was was arrested in Sylhet on Friday
NO TO POLITICS BAN
Meanwhile, Pragatisheel Chhatra Jote, an alliance of left-leaning student organisations, yesterday protested the Buet’s move to politics on the campus.
Its leaders alleged that the Buet students did not have grievances towards student politics rather than Chhatra League.
At a press conference at the Madhur Canteen, they also demanded a ban on Chhatra league’s politics at all educational institutions of the country.
Ducsu Vice-president Nurul Haque Nur, at a separate press conference, claimed that the demand to impose ban student politics was raised because of Chhatra League’s “terrorist activities”.
