An incident of mob violence (একটি গণসংঘাত)

Aminbazar, Dhaka; 11 August 2011

Six students were bludgeoned to death by a mob of several hundred villagers in Aminbazar on the outskirts of the capital on Shab-e-Barat early yesterday.

Aged between 16 and 22 they hailed from Darussalam, Kalyanpur and Shyamoli a few kilometres off Aminbazar.

Families claimed the seven had no criminal records, but could not say why they went to the area.

Protesting the killings, several hundred locals of Darussalam blocked the road from Kalyanpur to Technical Intersection for one and a half hours from 12.30pm. yesterday and vandalised two buses.

Al Amin, 18, a sales representative of a juice company, said he along with his six friends went to Aminbazar firstly by a rickshaw-van and then to Keblarchar on foot. 'We were walking along the riverbank at Keblarchar around 1:30am. All of a sudden, we saw a group of people coming towards us with torches in their hands,' he told reporters at Savar Thana Health Complex where he took treatment.

The people, without saying a word, beat them shouting 'dacoit, dacoit'.

While the mob was battering the seven, an elderly person asked all not to beat Al Amin, he said when his father Khabir Bepari met him at the health complex.

Two cases-one by a local sand trader Abdul Malek and the other by police were filed in connection with the incident.

Malek in his case statement said those killed in the mob beating were robbers and four of them extorted Tk. 5 thousand from him earlier that night. Sub-Inspector Anwar Hossain of the police station filed a murder case accusing five to six hundred unidentified villagers of the killings.

Mizanur Rahman, Dhaka district superintendent of police, said a gang of 14 of 15 came to Keblarchar and took away Tk. 5 thousand from sand trader Abdul Malek.

Later, when they made an attempt of robbery locals chased and caught seven of them.