A High Court in Bangladesh has upheld the death sentence of 20 men convicted of killing a fellow student seven years ago inside a university campus.
Abrar Fahad, a 21-year-old student at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), was killed in October 2019, hours after publishing a Facebook post criticising the then Sheikh Hasina government’s water-sharing treaty with India.
Massive protests erupted in Bangladesh after he was beaten to death with cricket bats and skipping ropes by a group of 25 students who were members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League – the banned student wing of Ms Hasina’s Awami League party.
The second-year college student’s body was found on a stairway at the university dormitory. An autopsy showed that he had been bludgeoned with blunt objects and had extensive bruises on his hands, legs and back.
The mass protests forced Ms Hasina to pledge the highest punishment for the perpetrators. The group of 20 were sentenced to death by a lower court in 2021.
A High Court bench of judge AKM Asaduzzaman and judge Syed Enayet Hossain on Sunday upheld the death sentence of 20 men and life in prison for five others. Four of the 20 men sentenced to death were still at large. One of the convicts, Muntasir Al Jamie, broke through the prison wall of a high-security jail in August 2024 during the anti-government mass protests.
“I am satisfied. I hope the legal procedures will be completed soon, and justice will be served,” Fahad’s father, Barkat Ullah, told reporters after the verdict.
“I don’t want to blame the parents who sent their sons to the top university, but they got involved in bad politics. I would urge others to stay away from harmful activities,” he added.
He urged students to not “engage in bad politics”. “Parents send their children to educational institutions and work hard so that the children have education. However, when children go astray, giving in to temptation, parents are deeply hurt,” he added.
Abrar Faiyaz, the victim’s younger brother, said that the family did not think even a year ago that the High Court verdict would be delivered “so soon”. “It may have been possible because of the changeover on 5 August last year. However, there is still a lot to be done.”
Bangladesh is run by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was appointed as the chief advisor, after Ms Hasina’s ouster last year following a violent anti-government uprising.
Mr Faiyaz added that if verdicts are implemented fast, it will act as a deterrent. “No one else should have the same fate as Abrar Fahad,” he added.
The lawyers for some of the defendants said they would appeal against the verdict. “After the appeals are filed, the execution of the death sentence will be suspended,” Azizur Rahman Dulu, the lawyer for two of the convicts, told the Daily Star.
