RU Shibir attack victim needs leg surgery

A former Chhatra League leader of Rajshahi University, whose left leg tendon was severed by Shibir men on Wednesday night, started for Dhaka last evening to have the leg operated on in the orthopaedic hospital.
AKM Tawhid Alam Akheruzzaman alias Takim had been put on life support at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH) since the attack when a group of Islami Chhatra Shibir men hammered him in the head and other parts of the body and cut the tendon of his leg.
Doctors withdrew his life support yesterday but said he might lose the left leg if it was not operated immediately in the orthopaedic hospital in Dhaka.
Local Awami League leaders visited him in RMCH and assured support for his treatment.
Takim, former vice president of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) at RU, is son of Tofazzal Hossain, an employee of Bangladesh Railway, in Syedpur, Nilphamari. The ex-Chhatra League leader is known for his brandishing firearms during the October 2 violence on the RU campus.
Six Shibir men riding two motorbikes attacked him near Khaleda Zia Hall on the campus around 8:00pm Wednesday night. Unconscious and bleeding profusely, he was admitted to the ICU at RMCH and kept there under a 72-hour observation.
His condition improved yesterday but he was not out of danger, said doctors. He could now breathe and his blood pressure remained normal.
A BCL leader of RU filed a case with Motihar Police Station against 25 named and around as many unnamed Shibir men for carrying out the attack.
Earlier, police arrested seven Jamaat and Shibir men in this connection raiding different parts of Rajshahi city.
Meanwhile, BCL activists and leaders staged demonstration against the attack on the campus yesterday.
The protesters said Shibir cadres attacked Takim to destabilise the campus as part their attempt to stop the war crimes trial.
They demanded immediate punishment for the Shibir cadres and said if the killers of BCL worker Faruque Hossain had been punished, the Shibir men could not have dared to launch further attacks on BCL men on the campus.
Faruque was killed during the campus violence on February 09, 2010.