Student allegedly beaten up by Chhatra League, ordered to leave dormitory

A resident student of Jahangirnagar University was allegedly called to the room of immediate seniors at midnight and ordered to leave the dormitory hall after torturing physically and mentally for not attending the political program of JU Chhatra League, being absent in the guest room and disobeying the instructions of the seniors. 

All the accused are activists of the Chhatra League and do politics backed by Branch President Aktaruzzaman Sohel.

The victim has submitted a complaint to the Provost of the concerned hall titled 'Application seeking justice for indiscriminate beating by Chhatra League staffers'. 

According to it, on Thursday (February 23) at 2 am at night, the torture incident took place in room number 219 of Bishwakabi Rabindranath Tagore Hall. 

Sakibul Islam Farabbi, a student of the 49th batch of the statistics department, who was the victim of the incident, said, "I could not attend some political programs as the second year final examination was going on. Meanwhile, I was also irregular in the guest room. Due to various faults in the eyes of the seniors, the immediate seniors of the 48th batch of the hall, I was called to room number 219 at 2 am." 

"At one point, they asked me to leave the hall immediately. It is my allotted hall, so I refused to leave the hall. Later they asked me to take off my shirt and pants," Sakibul described the incidents. 

"As I did not do so, they kept hitting me repeatedly. At one point, Everyone beat me up. Hearing my screaming, my batch mates brought me from that room."

When asked who was involved in the incident, the victim said, "Almost all the Chhatra League activists of the 48th batch of the President's Block of the Hall were present and Junaid Hasan Rana (English), Naimul Islam Sagar (Pharmacy), Atik Shahriar (History), Mohtasim Billah (Fine Arts), Utsha (Government and Politics ), Kabbya (Government and Politics), Junaid Ivan (Mathematics), Imran Mirza (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) and Saikat Islam (Physics) lead the incident."

Accused Rana, Billah and Utsha denied the accusation saying, "No such incident happened in the hall and the complainant, Farabbi is a habitual drug addict."

However, another accused, Naimul Islam Sagar, said, "Not only Farabbi, but few students of batch 49 were also called to room 219. They were asked to talk for a while then they left. All the students of batch 48 of the block were present, however, no beating was done, no one even touched."

In response to the question if he (Naimul) had ordered him to leave the hall, he said, "Not leaving the hall, he was asked to go to another room on the ground floor for the time being.” 

Naimul said about the faults he did, “We have a combined chat group of batch 48-49. There Farabbi wrote 'Kire Murgira Kotha Bolos Na Ken?'. The seniors in the group didn't take this well. He may not have realised that seniors were in that group. As everyone including the seniors has been termed 'Murgi,' he was said so (about leaving the room). When everything comes to normalcy, he will be back to his room."

Was he asked to take off his clothes? Naimul said, "We did not ask to take off the shirts and pants. The top button of Farabbi's shirt was open. So the seniors said that if he could keep one button open, he could do it for all. Else he should close all."

Asked if he was beaten up, he said, "We kept a certain distance and talked. No one was even touched in any way."

Shakib, a 49-batch student of International Relations, confirmed the incident of beating and said, "I woke up after the sound of slapping. Then I saw seniors of batch 48 beating Farabbi. Later I took him out of the room."

The victim, Farabbi, further said, "Rana bhai, Billah bhai, Atik bhai have beaten me with sticks, and Kabbya, Saikat bhai slapped and fisted."

Aktaruzzaman Sohel, President of the JU Chhatra League, said, "Chhatra League has declared zero-tolerance against ragging. If the allegations are true, then organisational action will be taken against the accused. We will run an anti-ragging awareness campaign in the campus tomorrow."

Bishwakabi Rabindranath Tagore Hall Provost Prof. Dr Nazmul Hasan Talukder said, "I have received a complaint and the matter will be looked into and appropriate action will be taken after inquiry."

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