Through a long dramatic process, police freed 62 of 72 former and present students from different top educational institutions, including 51 from the Buet, following their arrest on Thursday night, from their gathering at the capital’s Kaptanbazar area over suspicions of planning militant activities.
10 students of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), however, were shown arrested for their suspected links to Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), students’ wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, said Masudur Rahman, deputy commmissiomer of Community and Media Centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
The 61 detainees were released in two phases, 51 were freed at around 5am yesterday and 11 others last evening, he added.
Police of Wari Division accompanied by Detective Branch (DB) of Police raided the Star Hotel and Restaurant located on the BCC Road at Kaptanbazar at around 11:30pm and detained the 72 former and current students while from a gathering.
“Among the 72, 62 were Buet students, three ex-Buet students, and the rest were from the Brac University, Sir Salimullah Medical College and Notre Dame College”, said Ilias Sharif, DC of Wari Division.
He said, of the total detainees, 51 Buet students, who were all first year students, were freed and handed over them to the Registrar and the Student’s Welfare Advisor of the Buet following primary interrogation. However, 10 off the rest 21 were handed over to the DB in the afternoon.
“In the second phase, 11 students were freed in the evening under the bondages signed by their guardians, who had come to Wari Police. Besides, their profiles have been preserved and they would be kept under watch,” Ilias Sharif said.
Immediately after the detaining the 72 youths, both Wari police and DB officials had claimed to have arrested the suspected members of banned Islamist outfit Hijb-ut-Tahrir.
Meanwhile, Professor SM Nazrul Islam, the vice-chancellor of the Buet, told the Dhaka Tribune that the Registrar and the Students’ Welfare Adviser had received 51 Buet students according to the police’s request.
He said, however: “We take academic care of the students in the campus. As the incident took place outside the campus, we have no observations.”
He added: “Law would take its own course, according to what the students did.”