RU students attack railway station, ransack market

The students became agitated after they learnt that the body of Shariful Haque, 23, a fourth year Honours student of accounting department was lying on the track for some hours, unnoticed by railway employees and railway police.

He died under the train at about 10:30 pm but none could say how the accident took place. He was son of Azizul Haque of Pestokura village in Kamarkhand in Sirajganj district.

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Students also ransacked shops in the markets adjacent to the railway station.

Movement of trains through Rajshahi was stopped on Monday night.

Movement of trains started at about 2 pm yesterday after deployment of a large contingent of police men at the university railway station.

The university authorities formed a fivemember committee headed by business faculty Dean Prof Omer Ali to probe the matter.

Rajshahi University authorities yesterday announced a three-day mourning and hoisted black flag atop of the administrative building.

The accounting department also announced three-day mourning and its teachers and students wore black badges yesterday.

Students also stopped plying of university buses on all routes yesterday.

Additional police were deployed at different points on campus including the railway station, administrative building and vice-chancellor's residence.

Sources said some local people saw the body on the track about an hour after the accident and informed some students, who told the university authorities. But neither police nor anybody from the university administration rushed to the spot immediately.

This angered the students. They ransacked and torched some offices of the railway station. They also beat up some railway staff. Station master Abdul Hai escaped by fleeing the station.

At about midnight, the students took the dead to the vice-chancellor's residence and tried to swoop on it but were prevented by police.

The VC expressed his sorrow at the death of the student and assured the students of bearing all expenses for sending the body to his family and declaring a three-day mourning for the tragic incident.

Yesterday morning, teachers and students of accounting department carried the body to his native house by a university bus without autopsy.

A tea stall owner near the station claimed that Shariful had a cup of tea at his stall and performed ablution for prayer before his death. It can be a suicide, he claimed.