The students of various universities are protesting the killing of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) student Abrar Fahad who was found dead at the dormitory staircase at around 3 am on Monday (Oct 7) morning.
Jahangirnagar University students organised a human chain demonstration near the Shahid Minar on Monday afternoon, Bangla Tribune’s JU correspondent reports.
Activists of the political party student wings and several teachers joined the human chain after which they led a procession out of there.
“A person cannot be killed for their ideologies,” said Kabbo Krittika, student of the university’s archaeology department.
“If he indeed is affiliated with Shibir [Islami Chhatra Shibir] and that’s a crime then there are laws in the country,” she said.
She condemned the killing saying that killing based on ideologies can never be justified.
Shamajtantrik Chhatrafront (Marxist) JU unit chief Mahatir Mohammad said that Abrar was killed for criticizing the agreements Bangladesh signed with India recently. “As a citizen of Bangladesh he is entitled to criticise.”
The university’s Anthropology Department teacher Professor Syed Ferdous said that there is no freedom of speech or democracy in the country.
“Dictatorship has been established in the name of democracy,” he said and added that everywhere the criminals get off scot-free.
Meanwhile, Bangla Tribune’s Rajshahi University correspondent reports that the students of the university blocked the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway for over half-an-hour to protest the killing on Monday afternoon.
Paragatishil Chhatrajot activists took out a protest rally from the university’s central library on Monday and took position on the highway, chanting slogans and demanding justice.
The protesters said that the state has failed to give them the security it was supposed to provide.
They said that those who commit the crimes aren’t brought to book and announced blocking the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway once more in the evening.