An SSC examinee on Monday stabbed a teacher to death at the crime-infested Dakkhin Keraniganj on the outskirts of the capital a day after the victim had barred him from cheating in the examination.
The murder of the teacher triggering huge street protests in the area.
The victim, Md Mustafa Bhuiyan, 37, a teacher of English at Chunkutia Girls High School, was brought dead to Mitford Hospital at about 8:30am, the family and hospital sources said.
The Secondary School Certificate examinee of Oriental Textile Mills High School in the area, Mohammad Riad, son of Awami League’s Dakkhin Keraniganj upazila unit member Mohammad Ibrahim, plunged a knife in the chest of the teacher at the latter house in Purba Chunkutia in the area at about 7:30am, the family said.
The victim’s widow, Lucky Begum, who witnessed the horrifying murder, told New Age that the errant boy went to their rented house in the morning, approached her husband and stabbed him.
Lucky said that her husband was a tutor of Riad’s sister.
‘After coming to our house, Riad approached my husband and said his father had sent him to pay the tuition fee for his sister. The boy then pulled a knife from his pocket and plunged it in my husband’s chest,’ she said.
Raid went to the teacher’s house along with two of his friends and fled the scene immediately after stabbing the teacher.
As police delayed action after the incident, the alleged killers and his family members left the house, the locals alleged.
The house of Ibrahim, also joint secretary of Raufnagar community, was found empty while his tenants said they left the house soon after the incident.
Police were deployed in front of the nine-storey building of the accused at Raufnagar Kaliganj in the Shuvadda area.
Chunkutia Girls High School headmaster KM Elias told New Age that the victim, who was discharging his duty as an invigilator during Sunday’s mathematics examination, prevented Riad from cheating that infuriated the latter and led him to submit a blank answer script and leave the hall.
Soon after the news of the killing spread, teachers, students and guardians brought out a procession demanding immediate arrest of the killer.
Classes at most of the schools in the area were suspended.
The protesters took to the streets blocking traffic for about six hours.
The protesters marched in small processions demanding arrest of the killer.
Parjoyar Kalindi High School’s teacher Abul Eshan alleged that local thugs tried to threaten the protesters.
Keraniganj upazila chairman Shahin Ahmed, also convener of the Awami League Keraniganj model thana unit, asked the protesters to ‘do anything peacefully.’
Addressing a protest rally, local schoolteacher Mustafa Mahmud said that they would stop attending the examination duty if the authorities failed to ensure security for the teacher.
Meem Akhter, a student, said that they would continue the protest until justice was done.
Amid the daylong protests, the authorities held a meeting with the teachers, students and guardians in the afternoon.
After the meeting, Keraniganj upazila nirbahi officer Babul Miah told New Age that they had decided strengthen security for teachers and invigilators.
Education minister Nurul Islam Nahid visited the body at Sir Salimullah Medical College morgue in the afternoon and consoled the family of the slain teacher.
He instructed the law enforcers to immediately arrest the alleged killer.
But no one was arrested neither a case was filed with the Dakkhin Keraniganj police in this connection till 7:00pm.
The Dakkhin Keraniganj police officer-in-charge Shakhawat Hossain
said that the police were trying to arrest the alleged killer.
Mustafa Bhuiyan is survived by his widow and two sons, one of them one-year-old. He had joined the school in 2002.
The body was sent to his village home at Araihazar in Narayanganj for burial.
Courtesy of New Age