Angry students of Dhaka University vandalised at least 30 vehicles and set a bus ablaze at Shahbagh Sunday morning protesting the death of a fellow student in the early hours.
Redwan Hossain, 25, a post-graduate student at Department of Arabic, was hit by a lorry Saturday night while crossing a road in Motijheel area during a clash between DU students and transport workers.
Hearing the news of his death, hundreds of students thronged Shahbagh intersection at around 10:30am and started vandalising vehicles. They also set fire to a Mirpur-bound bus near Shishu Park. On information, police rushed there, charged truncheons and fired teargas shells to disperse the demonstrators. Road communication through Shahbagh with the other parts of the city remained suspended till 12:30pm.
however, police did not let any vehicle enter the DU campus through the Nilkhet entrance.
Friends and classmates of the deceased said some DU students were returning to the campus Saturday night when they locked in heated arguments with some workers of Himalay Paribahan. The transport workers beat up some students who later mobilised other students returning to the campus to avenge the attack. Witnesses said the students locked in clash with the transport workers in Motijheel when police rushed in. “Many of us tried to flee this time. What I can recall as the last thing was that Redwan and I rushed to cross the road,” a DU student who was also injured during the road crash told The Daily Star. Some DU students told The Daily Star that a lorry hit the two when they were crossing the road.
The two were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). As there was huge rush there, Redwan was taken to the intensive care unit of another hospital in Dhanmondi. He succumbed to his injuries at 2:05am Sunday. Rezaul Karim, officer-in-charge of Shahbagh Police Station, told The Daily Star that Redwan’s father took his son’s body to their village home in the morning. “No-one, including his father, had any complaint in connection with the death. He insisted that we don’t carry out any post-mortem and we agreed,” the police officer added.
News Source: The Daily Star