{"id":19521,"date":"2025-03-16T21:50:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T16:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=19521"},"modified":"2025-03-16T21:50:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T16:05:04","slug":"bangladesh-court-upholds-death-sentence-of-20-students-in-2019-murder-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/bangladesh-court-upholds-death-sentence-of-20-students-in-2019-murder-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangladesh court upholds death sentence of 20 students in 2019 murder case"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A court in Bangladesh upheld on Sunday death sentences of 20 former university students convicted of murdering a fellow student in 2019 who had criticised the country’s former government on social media.<\/p>\n

Abrar Fahad, 21, a student at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), was killed hours after publishing a Facebook post that criticised the then government of Sheikh Hasina for signing a water-sharing treaty with India.<\/p>\n

Fahad was beaten for nearly six hours with cricket bats by a group of 25 students, all members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of former prime minister’s political party, the Awami League.<\/p>\n

The student wing was accused of creating a reign of terror on university campuses before Hasina was ousted last year following a student-led uprising.<\/p>\n

“I am satisfied. I hope the legal procedures will be completed soon, and justice will be served,” Fahad’s father, Barkat Ullah, told reporters after the verdict was announced by the court on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to blame the parents who sent their sons to the top university, but they got involved in bad politics. I would urge others to stay away from harmful activities,” he added.<\/p>\n

Fahad’s killing sparked nationwide protests, forcing Hasina to pledge the highest punishment for the perpetrators.<\/p>\n

Due legal process will be followed to implement the verdict, Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman told reporters.<\/p>\n

“The High Court upheld the lower court verdict that handed down death sentences to 20 and life imprisonment to five,” Asaduzzaman said.<\/p>\n

“The convicts will be allowed to appeal against the verdict and will have all the rights ensured by the court.”<\/p>\n

Syed Mizanur Rahman, one of the group’s defence lawyers, said, “We will appeal against the verdict.”\u00a0Of the 20 sentenced to death, four are still on the run.<\/p>\n

One of them, Muntasir Al Jamie, who was convicted in Faha’s murder, broke through the prison wall of a high security jail on August 6.<\/p>\n

Death sentences are common in Bangladesh, with hundreds of people currently on death row.\u00a0All executions are carried out by hanging, a legacy of British colonial rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A court in Bangladesh upheld on Sunday death sentences of 20 former university students convicted of murdering a fellow student in 2019 who had criticised the country’s former government on social media. Abrar Fahad, 21, a student at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), was killed hours after publishing a Facebook post that criticised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19521"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19523,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19521\/revisions\/19523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}