A 21-year-old Brac University student, Fahmida Haque Labannya, was killed in a road accident in Dhaka on Thursday.
Labannya was the passenger on a motorcycle and died, run over by a covered van in front of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases at the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar around 12pm on Thursday, confirmed Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police Sub-Inspector (SI), Purabi Ranjan Dhar.
Labannya fell off when the motorcyclist apparently lost control, and critically injured the right side of her head. Doctors declared her dead after passers-by took her to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital.
Labannya was a third-year computer science and engineering student with dreams of becoming an engineer.
Police are yet to apprehend the bike or the motorcyclist, the SI said.
Police and locals said the covered van hit the motorcycle and fled from the spot.
Dhaka Tribune has obtained CCTV camera footage from a nearby restaurant that shows a red covered van running over the motorcycle Labannya was on.
A screenshot taken from the CCTV footage recovered from a nearby restaurant which shows a red covered van running over the motorcycle that Brac University student Labannya was on, on Thursday, April 25, 2019 І Collected
DMP Deputy Commissioner (Tejgaon Division), Biplab Kumar Sarkar, also confirmed they had the same footage showing the accident.
“But the footage is not very clear. It does not show the registration number of the vehicle in question. Our officers are working on finding the covered van and the motorcycle driver, who are still at large,” he told Dhaka Tribune.
Family sources and Biplab said a case was in the process of being filed.
SI Nurul Islam said Labannya took an UberMoto ride. The driver of the bike, Suman, was also injured in the incident. However, he left the hospital before police reached the place.
Brac University students and Labannya’s family gathered in front of the hospital’s morgue. They demanded trial of the covered van driver and the Uberdriver.
Family members said Labannya lived with her family on Road 3 in Shyamoli, Dhaka.
At the time of the report being filed around 8pm, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police OC, Jain Alam Munshi, said they are yet to make an arrest.
Labannya's accident comes a month after Abrar Ahmed Chowdhury, a Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP) student, was run over by a Suprobhat Paribahan bus as he was trying to cross the road in front of Jamuna Future Park in Kuril.
Abrar's death sparked a mass student protest for road safety across the country, similar to the one last year, after a speeding bus ploughed through a group of students, killing two on Airport Road in Dhaka.
Additional reporting by Aditto Ahsan Bari
