A group of Jahangirnagar University students demonstrated on the campus on Thursday demanding filing of a fresh case over the lynching of former Chhatra League leader Shamim Molla after scrapping the previous one as several 鈥榩erpetrators鈥� had been dropped from the charge sheet.
They also demanded severe punishment for those involved in the lynching considering the intensity of the offence.
Under the banner of Jahangirnagar University Common Students, they held a human chain on the university鈥檚 Central Shaheed Minar premises at about 3:40pm to press home their demands.
Speakers at the human chain called for a fair investigation into the death and claimed it was an unnatural death in police custody.
Addressing the human chain, Zahidul Islam Bappy said, 鈥榃e want the main perpetrators to get punishment after a fair investigation. We protest against harassing common students over a mob beating incident.鈥�
The protesters also questioned the case filed by JU chief security officer Sudipta Shaheen who was earlier prosecuted in the murder of a minor during the quota reform protests.
鈥楢n accused in a murder case cannot file another murder case,鈥� they said.
Another group of JU students were also seen demonstrating on the campus demanding punishment for the accused as per the intensity of the offence rather than accusing all of the onlookers in the murder case.
They claimed that a large number of students rushed to the JU proctor office on the day out of personal vengeance as Shamim Molla swooped on them with sharp weapons during the quota reform movement.
鈥楽ome former students, Chhatra Dal activists beat Shamim severely on the day. Some innocent students, however, were made accused in the case only for their presence on the scene,鈥� they said.
Earlier on September 20, the JU administration suspended eight students of the university and lodged a lawsuit against them over beating former organising secretary of the university unit BCL Shamim Molla on the campus on September 18.
On September 20, the police also arrested a BCL leader, Habibur Rahman Habib, in the Dhamrai area in Dhaka to interrogate him over the murder.
Police so far arrested one of the eight accused students.
On September 18, a group of Dhaka University students allegedly beat a mentally unstable person, Tofazzal Hossain, to death at the university鈥檚 Fazlul Huq Muslim Hall alleging that the victim had stolen mobile phones.
Dhaka University authorities had already suspended eight students, cancelled their residential accommodation over the incident and removed the hall provost, professor Shah Md Masum.
Six of the eight people were former activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of the Awami League, and were arrested on September 19 in the DU incident.