Lynching of man at DU: 6 students make confession, sent to jail

Six Dhaka University students arrested in connection with lynching a man named, Masud Kamal Tofazzal, at Fazlul Huq Muslim Hall of the DU have submitted confessional statements to court under Section 164.

Following the submission of confessional statements, the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Saddam Hossain ordered police to send them to jail.

Earlier, investigation officer (IO) of the case sub-inspector Aminul Islam produced the six accused before the court. Afterward, when the accused agreed to submit confessional statements, the IO pleaded to the court to record their confessions.

The students had allegedly beaten Tofazzal at the hall of DU on Wednesday night.

It is learnt that the students took Tofazzal to the guestroom after catching him where they had beaten him repeatedly till 10:00pm.

At one stage of beating, Tofazzal felt very hungry. Then, beating was paused and he was taken to the hall canteen where he was fed dinner. Then the students resumed beating him. The house tutors of the hall went to the place of occurrence at after 10:00pm. Then several students took Tofazzal to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). When the on-duty doctors pronounced Tofazzal dead, the students left his body at the hospital.

As the DMCH authorities informed the Shahbagh Police Station, police went to the hospital and prepared a first information report of the dead body. After the postmortem at the morgue, Tofazzal’s body was handed over to his relatives.

Later, being the plaintiff, the DU authorities filed a murder case at Shahbagh Police Station in connection with the incident. After the case was filed, the investigation officer and senior officials of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) visited the place of occurrence. Then the Dhaka University Proctorial Body handed over six DU students to Shahbagh Police Station suspecting their involvement in the murder.

The arrested six students are Md Jalal Mia, Suman Mia, Mottakin Shakin, Al Hussain Sajjad, Ahsanullah and Wajibul Alam. All them are the residential students of Fazlul Huq Hall.

Jalal Mia, a student of Physics, is also former deputy secretary of science and technology affairs of the hall’s Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL).

He resigned from Chhatra League to join the quota reform protests in July.

The political identities of five other suspects could not be known.

Meanwhile, witnesses said former BCL leader Jalal hit Tofazzal many times. Several others were also involved.

A video showed that eight to 10 students of the hall including Jalal were beating Tofazzal mercilessly.