Only survivor tells The Daily Star about the fateful night
Al Amin, the lone survivor of Aminbazar mob beating early Monday, told yesterday how he saved his life and that plainclothes police just watched his friends get killed from a couple of yards away.
Traumatised and with injuries all over his body, 17-year-old Al Amin is now at home after he obtained bail on Tuesday in a robbery case filed by Savar police after the dreadful incident. A mob beat to death six students on the night of Shab-e-Barat suspecting them to be robbers.
Since the incident, police has been insisting that the students were out on Keblarchar to rob villagers.
According to Al Amin, on the fateful night he, his friends Towhidur Rahman Palash and Kamruzzaman Kanto offered prayers at Darussalam Furfura Sharif Mosque and met Shams Rahim Shamam, Ibrahim Khalil, Tipu Sultan and Sitaf Jabi Munif when they came to the main road for a walk.
The seven decided to have tehari at Gabtoli and took two rickshaws. Reaching there they changed their mind and decided to spend the night roaming the area and have some fun. So they crossed Gabtoli bridge on foot and went along the Turag river up to Keblarchar.
“We split into two groups and sat by the river. Palash, Kanto and I were together while Shamam, Tipu, Ibrahim and Munif were about 200 yards away. Suddenly, we three heard the other four screaming for help. We thought they were attacked by muggers or robbers.
“We rushed for their help but found hundreds of villagers beating them indiscriminately while about 50 others were coming to attack us calling us robbers,” Al Amin continued.
“We tried to tell them that we were students, not robbers and have come from Darussalam area. But by then, several people swooped on and started beating us up. I heard the assaulting villagers say they had already killed four of us.
“Scared of death, I grabbed the legs of an elderly man and begged for my life but he kept hitting me. Then I spotted plainclothes policemen with shotguns standing there and watching the mob go crazy. I begged them to save my life.”
A policeman then stopped the attackers, he said.
“All of your friends are dead and so will you soon unless you agree to say whatever we want you to say,” said Al Amin quoting the “saviour” policeman as saying.
The policeman asked him to admit that the students had robbed a sand trading post and taken away Tk 5,000. Al Amin agreed. He was then sent to a hospital under police arrangement.
Earlier, police and villagers claimed that there were 14 to 15 “robbers” and the rest of them got away by an engine boat. Police also claimed to have recovered six sharp weapons from the spot.
But Al Amin dismissed the claims saying that there is no question of carrying sharp weapons as they were there just to have fun. He believes that the villagers brought the weapons as the bodies of the six students killed in the incident bore injury marks from sharp weapons.
Al Amin, eldest of two brothers and a sister, supplies fruit juice to shops to help his family.
His father Khabir Bapari, who used to drive a CNG-run-auto rickshaw, told the daily star that he can only afford to admit his son to a hospital but is in no position to bear the cost of the treatment. Moreover, the family is afraid to take him to a hospital since police are against them.
-With The Daily Star input
