Bangladesh HC upholds 20 students' death penalty for lynching university mate

Dhaka: The High Court on Sunday upheld a trial court verdict handing down the death penalty to 20 students of an elite university here for beating to death a fellow second-year student over his alleged political affiliation in 2019.

Court officials said the two-judge bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice 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 (BUET), belonged to the now disbanded Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.

They lynched Abrar Fahad, a second-year student of BUET’s electrical and electronics department on October 7, 2019 over a Facebook post by him criticising the government.

Fahad's battered body was found in his university dormitory the next morning. Investigations later found that he was beaten to death with a cricket bat and other blunt objects for almost six hours by 25 fellow students.

Both the BUET and BCL immediately expelled these students after Fahad’s murder.

A Dhaka court sentenced to death the 20 convicts on December 8, 2021 when Awami League was in power.

Apart from upholding the death penalty for 20 students, “the court also upheld the life term imprisonment for other five convicts, who too were BUET students,” Attorney General M Asaduzzaman said.

Fahad’s father told reporters after the High Court verdict: “We are satisfied with the High Court's ruling. However, the verdict must be implemented swiftly.” His brother Faiyaz said, “We did not expect to receive such a swift verdict from the High Court. We are satisfied with this ruling, although there are still many legal procedures remaining.” Defence lawyer Azizur Rahman Dulu said the verdict disappointed him and added: “We will appeal to the Appellate Division, hoping to receive justice there.” The convicts were tried in person but one of the death row inmates in the case, Muntasir Al Jamie, had fled a high-security prison at suburban Kashimur Central Jail last year.

He fled the facility along with 86 other death row convicts, including some militants, on August 6, 2024, a day after the fall of Hasina’s regime in a massive student-led mass protest taking advantage of the chaos.