A Bangladeshi court sentenced 20 university students to death on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 for their roles in the killing of Abrar Fahad, a brilliant engineering student, aged 21 at the time, who criticized the government on social media in 2019.
The battered, dead body of Abrar was found lying in the dormitory just hours after he had posted a status on Facebook questioning and criticizing Sheikh Hasina’s water-sharing deals with India, in which it was evident that Bangladesh had nothing to gain from the treaties.
Based on these facts alone it has always been evident that Abrar’s murder was not a dispute between the students. It was political.
The perpetrators, also students at the top engineering university, BUET, were members of the Bangladesh Chathra League (BCL), the student wing of Bangladesh’s current regime, the Awami League, headed by Sheikh Hasina.
It does not therefore take a rocket scientist to connect the dots and figure out a motive. In addition, Abrar was mercilessly beaten with cricket bats for at least four hours but no one on the campus tried to put a stop to it, nor come to his aide nor alert the authorities.
Mass protests to ban the BCL (which should actually be internationally recognized as a terrorist organization for all its human rights abuses over the years) resulted in the days after Abrar’s murder. The Bangladesh authorities are proud to announce “the highest punishment” for the perpetrators but, the larger problem remains.
The fact that a social media post asking legitimate questions regarding the state of sovereignty of one’s country leading to a gruesome murder by those directly connected to the ruling party of the country is outrageous. It’s inhuman. It’s shameful and it demonstrates to what extent there is a culture of impunity there is in Bangladesh where the ruling party is concerned.
20 BCL members accused of killing Abrar getting the death penalty does not solve the larger problem. The bigger picture is that the 20 killers were mere foot soldiers and henchmen and did not act out their own decisions. They were taking orders from much higher ups in the chain of command. What of the that larger problem?
Let’s not lose lose sight of the real issue.
*The writer, Sabria Chowdhury Balland, is the Editor-in-Chief of Aequitas Review.
December 9, 2021
