RU teacher hacked to death
Unidentified miscreants on Saturday hacked a teacher of Rajshahi University to death on his way home, sparking protests on the campus. The slain professor of sociology, AKM Shafiul Islam, 49, a member of the pro-Awami League Progressive Teachers’ Society, was also former vice-president of the Rajshahi University Teachers’ Association. The miscreants pounced on Shafiul at the entrance to Bishwabidyalay Housing Society, better known as Bihas, and struck him repeatedly with machetes before terrified bystanders as he was returning to his residence in the residential area by a motorbike at about 3:00pm. He was taken to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital in a critical condition where he died around 4:00pm.
The motive behind the killing could not be known immediately. University pro-vice chancellor Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan told New Age that police was investigating the murder. ‘The motive will be known only after the investigation,’ he added. As the news of the killing of the teachers spread, angry university students took to the streets and blocked Dhaka-Rajshahi highway, demanding immediate arrest of the suspects. They staged protests on the highway for more than two hours that led to huge tailbacks to the plight of several thousand commuters. The agitating students kept the highway blocked until the university proctor Tariqul Islam persuaded them to disperse assuring them of immediate arrest and exemplary punishments of the killers. The university teachers association has announced a daylong strike on the campus protesting at the gruesome killing of their colleague. ‘No classes or examinations will be held on Sunday,’ said Pranab Kumar Pundey, general secretary of the association. A gang of unidentified miscreants hacked him with machetes at the entrance to Bihas in Chauddapai area close to the university campus around 3:00pm,
leaving him fatally injured, said Alamgir Hossain, officer-in-charge of Motihar police station. He said the police had recovered a motorbike and a bloodstained machete from the spot. He said they were preparing for filing a case. The registrar of RMCH neurosurgery unit said Shafiul died around 4:00pm from the injuries in the head and neck. The body was taken to the hospital morgue in the evening for post-mortem examination. Tension was simmering on the campus over the killing of Shafiul. The Progressive Students’ Alliance marched in a protest procession on the campus demanding arrest and trial of the killers. After the autopsy, the body was taken to the central mosque of the university where his namaz-e-janaza was held at 9:00pm before the body was taken to his ancestral home at Sonatala in Bogra where he would be buried at the family graveyard. The professor, a divorcee who married thrice, used to live at his Bihas residence alone as his only son stays in Dhaka, according to his colleagues and friends. Earlier in 2006, the body of Professor S Taher Ahmed of the RU department of geology and mining was found in a manhole three days after he had gone missing on February 1. On December 24, 2004, Mohammad Yunus, an economics teacher and RU Bangabandhu Parishad president, was killed as he was out for his morning walk.
News Content Courtesy: http://newagebd.net
