Abrar murder aimed to deny Hasina Nobel Peace Prize: Chattagram mayor

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the peace prize to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed this year but the mayor of Bangladesh’s Chattogram city believes Sheikh Hasina would have won it had a university student not been murdered days before the announcement.

Chattogram Mayor AJM Nasir Uddin suspects a conspiracy behind the murder of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology student Abrar Fahad aimed to deprive Hasina of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“The name of our Prime Minister, Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina was under active consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize. But it (Abrar murder) happened the same day the Nobel committee sat,” Nasir claimed on Saturday.

“There could be some conspiracy, some ill intentions so that she could not win the prize,” he told a discussion organised by a unit of the ruling Awami League in the port city.

The killing of Abrar allegedly after being bludgeoned by leaders of the Awami League’s student wing Bangladesh Chhatra League was “of course unfortunate”, Nasir said but added the killers did it “overenthusiastically and without any party instructions”.

“Now we must find out whether someone else made them do it,” the mayor said.

He alleged the BNP’s student front Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal and the Jamaat-e-Islami’s student affiliate Islami Chhatra Shibir infiltrated BCL to taint the Hasina government with wrongdoings.

He described the measures taken by the authorities and ordered by Hasina to swiftly arrest the Abrar murder suspects in order to ensure justice.

Many in Bangladesh, largely the leaders and activists of the ruling party, believe Hasina deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for sheltering over 1.1 million Rohingya refugees who fled a violent military crackdown in 2017 and decades of persecution in Myanmar.

She had told expatriate Awami League leaders in London in October, 2017 that she had taken the decision to shelter the Rohingya on humanitarian grounds.

Leaders of UK Awami League had said she considers winning the love of Bangladesh's people “greater” than getting Nobel Peace Prize.