Truck crushes schoolgirl to death

A schoolgirl was killed and another injured when a truck hit them in Comilla's Muradnagar upazila yesterday. The accident happened at a time when school and college students took to the streets in the capital, demanding justice for the death of the two college students.

The deceased is Aklima Akter, 16, daughter of Abdi Miah of Babutipara village.

She was a tenth-grader at Gomta Ishakia High School. Her classmate Tamanna Akter, 16, took first aid at a clinic. 

Munshi Saif Ahmed, headmaster of the school, said the sand-laden truck hit Aklima and Tamanna near the school while trying to overtake another vehicle on Dhaka-Chittagong highway around 1:20pm. The two were going home on foot. Aklima died on the spot, he added.

Hearing the accident news, students of the school blocked the highway in front of the school, creating a long tailback from Eliotganj to Chandina.

Students withdrew the blockade after an hour when Monirul Islam, in-charge of Eliotgonj Highway Police Outpost, and Mamunur Rashid, local union parishad chairman, assured them that they would take action against those responsible for the accident. 

Police were yet to seize the truck, Monirul said.

In the capital on Sunday, Dia Khanam Mim and Abdul Karim Rajib, students of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College, were killed as a bus ploughed into a crowd while competing with another for passengers on Airport Road.

Since the accident, school and college students have been demonstrating on the city streets, protesting the death of the students and demanding safe road.