Dhaka tribunal opens trials of 25 suspects in murder of BUET student Abrar Fahad

A Dhaka court has opened the trials of 25 people with alleged ties to the murder of Abrar Fahad, a student of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

Court Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 15 Sept 2020, 06:45 AM
Updated : 15 Sept 2020, 10:09 AM

Dhaka Speedy Tribunal-1 Judge Abu Zafar Md Kamruzzaman framed the charges against all accused and issued the trial order on Tuesday.

Abrar, a sophomore student of electrical and electronic engineering at BUET, was tortured to death at the Sher-e-Bangla Hall in October 2019.

The university suspended 19 students and banned organisational political activities on the campus following student protests.

The judge will hear testimony on every workday from Sept 20 to Oct 1 without a break.

Police pressed formal charges against the 25 suspects over the murder in November 2019.

Abrar was bludgeoned to death by a group of activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League in his dormitory on Oct 6 after he criticised the government over a water-sharing deal with India on Facebook. His father started a case against 19 students with Chawkbazar police the next day.

Police arrested 21 people over the killing. Another suspect later turned himself in to court. Three suspects are currently on the run.

Nineteen people charged with the murder were named in the case, while six others were apprehended in the course of the investigation.

The case offered harrowing accounts of how Abrar was clobbered with cricket stumps and skipping ropes for hours before his eventual death on Oct 6.

The BCL activists later dropped Abrar's body on a staircase of the Sher-e-Bangla Hall before doctors pronounced him dead in the morning.