Bangladesh court gives death penalty to 20 for killing fellow student

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – A high court in Bangladesh on Sunday awarded death sentences to 20 students and life imprisonment to five others of the country's top engineering university for brutally killing a fellow student, upholding a lower court verdict.

The bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain delivered the verdict, dismissing the appeals filed by the convicts.

On Oct. 7, 2019, the ruling Awami League party’s student wing, now banned Students’ League (BSL), brutally tortured Abrar Fahad, a second-year student of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), to death in the university dormitory.

Attackers tagged Abrar as a member of opposition Islami Chhatra Shibir and beat him to death for his articles he wrote on the social media handle Facebook against Indian water aggression on Bangladeshi rivers.

Amid nationwide outcry, a court in Dhaka, in late 2021, sentenced 20 fellow BUET students, mostly members of BSL, to death for the murder and five others to life imprisonment.

Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman told reporters that the court upheld the lower court order as the allegations against the convicts were proven.

Abrar Faiyaj, Abrar's younger brother and also a BUET student, and his father demanded implementation of the verdict. They, however, expressed dissatisfaction as one of the convicts in the case fled jail during last August's uprising.

Lawyer Azizur Rahman Dulu, who argued for the convicts, however, told reporters that they will file an appeal before the Supreme Court against the high court order soon.

Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party, which was known for friendly relations with India, resigned last August in the face of a popular uprising.

Abrar has become an icon of protest during the July uprising in Bangladesh, and his portraits were displayed across Dhaka and elsewhere.

The transitional government, which took office after Hasina fled to India, this year awarded Abrar with the highest state honor, the Independence Award.