Death of Abrar: Suprobhat owner charge-sheeted

Detectives yesterday submitted two charge sheets against Suprobhat Paribahan owner and three of its staffers in a case filed over the killing of university student Abrar Ahmed Chowdhury in a road accident last month.

They were charge-sheeted in two charges -- one for murder of Abrar and the other for attempted murder of college girl Synthia Islam Mukta.

Inspector of Detective Branch of police Kazi Shariful Islam, also investigation officer of the case, submitted the charge sheets to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court of Dhaka.

The accused are owner of Suprobhat Paribahan Noni Gopal Sarker, its bus driver Sirajul Islam, conductor Yasin Arafat and

helper Md Ibrahim. All the accused are now in jail.

The DB pressed charges against Yasir and Gopal in the Abrar murder charge, while all the four were charged-sheeted in the attempted murder charge of Synthia. Thirty-two people were made witnesses.

If the murder charges are proved against Yasir and Gopal, they will face the highest punishment of life-term imprisonment. If the attempt-to-murder charges against the four accused are proved, they will get the highest punishment of a term of seven years in jail, according to the provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 

On March 19, a bus of Suprobhat Paribahan ran over and killed Bangladesh University of Professionals student Abrar near the capital’s Bashundhara Residential Area, after it had hit college girl Synthia in Shahjadpur area.

Following the incident, Abrar’s father Brig Gen (retd) Arif Ahmed Chowdhury filed a murder case with Gulshan Police Station.

All the four accused were arrested from different places on different dates and they have given confessional statements before magistrates.   

Police and fellow students of Abrar said he was crossing the road through a zebra crossing to catch a bus for his university when the Suprobhat Paribahan bus hit him, leaving him dead on the spot.

FACT OF THE INCIDENT

As per the confessional statements of Gopal and three others, it was learnt that passengers and pedestrians caught bus driver Sirajul and handed him over to police in Shahjadpur on the morning of March 19 after the vehicle had hit college girl Synthia.

After the accident, the bus was parked by a road there. Conductor Yasin then informed Gopal of the incident over phone and said agitated locals might torch the bus. Gopal then asked him to drive the vehicle to a safer place.

Yasin, who had no driving licence, took the wheel and the bus ran over and killed 20-year-old Abrar near Bashundhara Residential Area.