DHAKA: The high court on Sunday upheld a trial court verdict handing down death penalty to 20 students of an elite university for beating to death a fellow second-year student over his alleged political affiliation in 2019.
Court officials said a bench of justices AKM Asaduzzaman and Syed Enayet Hossain pronounced the verdict simultaneously wrapping up the hearing on the mandatory death reference and convicts’ appeals against the lower court judgment.
All the convicts, students of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, belonged to the now disbanded Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.
They lynched Abrar Fahad, a second-year student of electrical and electronics department on Oct 7, 2019 over a Facebook post criticising the govt. Fahad’s battered body was found in his university dormitory the next morning. Investigations later found he was beaten to death with a cricket bat and other blunt objects for almost six hours by 25 fellow students.
The students were immediately expelled after Fahad’s murder. A Dhaka court sentenced to death the 20 convicts on Dec 8, 2021 when Awami League was in office.
Defence lawyer Azizur Rahman Dulu said the verdict disappointed him. “We will appeal to the Appellate Division, hoping to receive justice there,” he added.