Deaths in road crash: Rajshahi college students mourn, protest
Students of Rajshahi Government College today staged demonstration blocking a road in the city protesting the death of their three fellows in road accident yesterday.
Several hundred students took to the street in front of the college compound around 10:30am demanding capital punishment to the drivers of the two buses that collided on the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway in the city, killing three female students dead and injuring 50 others.
Demanding safe routes and transport service for them, the students were staging a sit-in on the road till 12:30am when the report was filed.
The accident took place when the college bus was carrying female students to Baneshwar. Following the collision, the college bus veered off the road and fell into a roadside ditch.
The dead are Sharmin Akhtar, final year student of Management; Mahbuba Haque Tania, 1st year student of Social Work; and Beauty Khatun, 4th year student of Islamic History, said college Principal Hobibur Rahman.
Soon after the accident, the college announced a three-day mourning to pay respect to the dead and closed the college for four days since today.
The agitating students alleged that the college authorities shut the college aiming to avert the students protest.
Though the college authorities realise regular fee from the students, it runs the transportation system with hired buses instead of developing the sector, Imran Ali, a classmate of Beauty, said while talking to The Daily Star.
He claimed that seven out of eight buses of the college are hired. “And most of the time, the helpers drive the buses,” Imran added.
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