College girl loses battle for life

After battling for life for 13 days, a college girl, allegedly set on fire by her cousin in Narsingdi district town on June 13, died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) early yesterday.

The deceased is Phulon Barman, 22, daughter of Shital Barman, of the district town’s Birpur area.

Phulon’s father told The Daily Star that a group of youths waylaid her while she was returning home from a shop around 8:45pm on the day.

They took her to an abandoned place, poured kerosene on her and set her afire.

Hearing screams, locals rescued and took her to Narsingdi General Hospital. She was shifted to DMCH the same night as her condition deteriorated.

Partha Shankar Paul, resident surgeon of the hospital’s burn unit, said, “We tried our best to save her. She had suffered 20 percent burns.”

Phulon’s body was taken to her village home after autopsy, he added.

Her father filed a case on June 14. Later, police arrested her cousin Bhobotosh Barman and his three associates -- Raju Sutradhar, Sanjib Barman and Ananda Barman.

On Friday, Raju gave a confessional statement to the Narsingdi Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, said police.

In his statement, Raju said there had been a longstanding feud over a piece of land between Phulon’s father and two others. Bhobotosh hatched the plan to implicate the two in the incident.

Phulon passed HSC exam from Narsingdi Udayan College in 2018 but could not continue her education due to hardship, reports our Brahmanbaria correspondent.