Residents of Hatia village in Sundarganj upazila, Gaibandha have reportedly been forced to go into hiding to avoid arrest for vandalising a house and a shop while protesting the death of college student Ripan Chandra Das.
Speaking at a press briefing in Gaibandha Press Club on Wednesday, Ripan's father Babul Chandra Das and other Hatia residents complained that several hundred people had fled the village as police had been harassing them for protesting Ripan's untimely death while in police custody.
Police had arrested Ripan, 22, on June 1 because he had been accused of abducting a Class IX student from the same village.
He was killed later in the night when a speeding truck ran over him on the Dhaka-Rangpur highway as he tried to escape, according to police.
However, Ripan's family and fellow villagers claim that police and the family of the ninth-grader tortured him to death.
Police said they found the duo in Bogra's Kahalu upazila and were bringing them back to Sundarganj on June 1.
They made a pit stop on the Dhaka-Rangpur highway as Ripan asked for a bathroom break, said Senior Assistant Superintendent of Police Khairul Islam on June 2.
As police let him out of the car, he made a run for it and was run over by the truck when he tried to cross the highway, the police official added.
The accident caused a massive uproar in Hatia. Four members of Sundarganj police – Sub-Inspector Razu Ahmed and Constables Shahanur Rahman, Mostafizur Rahman and Nargis Begum – who were bringing Ripan and the girl in were withdrawn from the police station for negligence in duty.
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However, at Wednesday's press briefing, Ripan's brother Pandit Chandra Das claimed that his brother had not abducted the girl.
He told journalists that Ripan had been involved in a romantic relationship with the ninth-grader and had eloped on May 29, taking shelter at the house of a relative in Kahalu.
The girl's father filed an abduction case with Sundarganj police station. Pandit said when police found Ripan and the girl and started the journey back to Sundarganj on a microbus, Ripan's father requested police not to take Ripan and the girl's father in the same car.
But police ignored his request and took the girl's father as well as local Union Parishad member Montaj Uddin in the same vehicle as Ripan.
Pandit alleged that the four police members, Montaj and the girl's father then tortured Ripan and killed him.
As the news of Ripan's death broke out, an agitated mob vandalised the house of a shop owned by the girl's family.
Ripan's father filed a murder case against the four police members, the girl's father and the UP member, while the girl's father filed a vandalism case against 150 villagers.
Following the vandalism case, Sundarganj police started mass arrest and has been harassing the villagers, claimed Babul, Pandit and several other residents of Hatia.
When contacted, Sundarganj police station OC Atiar Rahman refuted the allegation of mass arrest and harassment.
“Police have arrested only eight people in connection with the vandalism and are looking for others involved with the attack,” he added.
Thursday, June 04, 2026
