Bangladesh court sentences 9 to death for attacking PM Hasina 25 years ago
Dhaka: A Bangladeshi court on Wednesday sentenced nine activists of a BNP-led alliance to death and 25 others to life in prison for attacking Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina 25 years ago when she was the Opposition leader.
Hasina was leading a nationwide campaign by rail when her coach came under attack upon arriving in Pabna's Ishwardy on September 23, 1994.
Hasina survived the assault carried out during Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairperson Khaleda Zia's first term as prime minister.
A Pabna court sentenced nine people to death and 25 others to life in prison for attacking the train, media reports said. Additional Sessions Judge Rostom Ali also jailed 13 people for 10 years.
The railway police, as plaintiff, initiated a case against 135 people in connection with the incident.
But the investigation hit a snag during the BNP's rule before picking up speed once the Awami League formed government in 1996, reports said.
Police later submitted a charge sheet against 52 accused at the end of the probe.
After the verdict, local BNP activists held a protest on the court premises while ruling Awami League supporters and activists held separate procession expressing satisfaction over the judgement.
The judgement came on a day when Hasina arrived in Beijing on an official visit.
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Student found dead in hostel room in IIT Kharagpur
Kolkata (PTI): A 22-year-old M Tech student was found dead in his hostel room in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the second such incident reported on the campus within a span of 10 days.
The student, identified as Soham Haldar, was found hanging from the ceiling of his hostel room on Tuesday and he was immediately taken to the institute hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, an IIT Kharagpur official said.
Haldar, a dual-degree student in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, was a boarder of the Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Hall of Residence on the campus.
Police from the Kharagpur Town police station have initiated a probe into the incident as preliminary findings indicated that it could be a case of suicide, though the exact cause of death will be ascertained following the post-mortem examination, the official said.
In a statement, the institute expressed deep grief over the student's death and said a detailed inquiry has been initiated.
The authorities have informed the family and are extending all possible assistance to them, it added.
Director Suman Chakraborty told PTI that the institute will strengthen the mechanism to identify stressed-out and depressed students and take follow-up steps to address their issues.
The grief-stricken parents of the student, who hailed from Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, have come to the campus and the authorities will speak to them, he said.
"Haldar's friends, faculty and staffers also could not gauge any stress or anxiety in him. But we need to enable students suffering from anxiety and extreme stress to open up their minds and do everything needed to prevent such incidents," he said.
Investigators are also scrutinising CCTV footage from the hostel premises to piece together the sequence of events leading to the incident.
The incident comes close on the heels of another student's death reported on April 18, when 21-year-old Jaibir Singh Dodia, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student from Ahmedabad, allegedly died after jumping from the eighth floor of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hall of Residence. That case is also under investigation.
The back-to-back incidents have once again brought the issue of mental health and student support systems at the institute into focus, especially in view of several such cases reported last year.
