In a verdict that reeks of political expediency, a Rajshahi court on Sunday acquitted all remaining accused in the brutal 2010 murder of Faruk Hossain, a Chhatra League activist at Rajshahi University (RU), citing a lack of evidence.
This decision, coming nearly 15 years after the gruesome killing, is not an isolated miscarriage of justice but the latest exhibit in the Yunus regime’s systematic dismantling of accountability for Bangladesh’s most violent political actors.
Since Muhammad Yunus seized power in a meticulously designed movement led by Islami Chhatra Shibir in August 2024, his interim government has unleashed a torrent of releases, withdrawals, and acquittals targeting those implicated in sensational crimesโparticularly members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami, Chhatra Shibir (Jamaat’s student wing), and Hefazat-e-Islam.
The Faruk murder case, once a damning indictment of Islamist student militancy, now stands as a stark symbol of this capitulation.
Faruk Murder: A timeline of horror and betrayal
The murder unfolded on the night of February 8, 2010, in the Shah Makhdum Hall at RU, a flashpoint for clashes between the secularist Chhatra League and the hardline Chhatra Shibir.
Faruk, a master’s student in mathematics and a vocal Chhatra League organiser, was hacked to death in the dormitory’s television room around 2am.
His mutilated body was unceremoniously dumped into a manhole, discovered the next morning by horrified students.
The attack was no spontaneous brawl; it was a coordinated rampage by over 1,500 Shibir activists, armed with Chinese axes, hammers, rods, machetes, and daggers. Led by figures like hall unit general secretary Ahad and former hall president Anis, the mob slit tendons of Chhatra League members and left a trail of carnage on campus.
The case file, lodged the next day by then-Chhatra League general secretary Majedul Islam Apu at Motihar police station, initially named 35 Jamaat and Shibir leaders, including high-profile figures like Jamaat-e-Islami’s then-central Amir Matiur Rahman Nizami, Secretary General Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujaheed, and Nayeb Amir Delawar Hossain Sayedee.
By July 2012, a sprawling 1,269-page charge sheet had ballooned the accused list to 114, encompassing RU Shibir president Shamsul Alam Golap, secretary Mobarak Hossain, and hall leaders Hasmat Ali and Raijul Islam.
Nine accused have since died; of the 105 survivors, only 25 bothered to show up for the verdict.
Rajshahi Metropolitan Sessions Judge First Court Judge Zulfikar Ullah delivered the acquittal at 2:15pm on Sunday, citing insufficient evidence to prove charges “beyond doubt.”
Prosecutor Ali Ashraf Masum’s post-verdict remarks were a masterclass in diplomatic evasion: “It is not possible to say whether we are happy or unhappy… I will first see the details after receiving the verdict.”
But he let slip a crucial truth: When the case was filed under the Awami League government, “the real accused were hidden and others were accused for political reasons.” This oblique admission underscores a deeper rotโyet it dodges the elephant in the room: Why, after 15 years of investigation and trial, has the evidence suddenly evaporated under Yunus’s watch?
Jamaat’s Own Confession: Shibir’s bloodlust laid bare
Jamaat’s own damning admissions amplify the acquittal’s farce. Just two days after the murder, on February 10, 2010, then-US Ambassador to Dhaka James F. Moriarty cabled Washington, relaying a conversation with Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Abdur Razzaq.
Razzaq did not mince words: He acknowledged that Chhatra Shibir men had killed Faruk in cold blood.
Describing the clash as escalating from a minor dorm spat between four students (two from each side) into a full-scale Shibir onslaught, Razzaq detailed how 1,500 radicals gathered, went on a “rampage,” slaughtered Faruk, and shoved his corpse into the manhole.
He even conceded that Shibir activists “allegedly slit the tendons of a number of Chhatra League members.”
Razzaq called the murder “inhumane, regrettable, and indefensible,” vowing Jamaat’s full cooperation with investigators.
Yet Shibir, Jamaat’s youth arm, has long cloaked its thuggery in platitudes about pursuing “Islam’s larger role in national life via democratic and non-violent means.”
The reality? A history of gruesome murders and orchestrated violence against opponents, especially at RU and Chittagong UniversityโShibir strongholds, where secular students were routinely terrorised. The Faruk killing wasn’t an aberration; it was textbook Shibir, a tactic honed during decades of Islamist resurgence.
From killers to corruptors, all walk free
This acquittal isn’t a judicial hiccupโit’s the predictable endpoint of Yunus’s post-August 2024 purge of prosecutions.
Since last year, the Nobel laureate-turned-interim leader has presided over a blanket amnesty for the very forces that fueled Bangladesh’s descent into chaos. He has withdrawn the corruption cases against him, exempted his taxes for the next five years and used the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to persecute the Awami League leadership.
BNP operatives, including its acting chairman Tarique Rahman, once cornered for election rigging, violence and corruption, have been sprung from cells.
Jamaat-Shibir cadres, convicted in war crimes tribunals for 1971 atrocities, now strut freely. Hefazat zealots, infamous for involvement in militant attacks, have been freed.
The pattern is exhaustive: Criminal and corruption chargesโfiled under Hasina’s tenure against thousands implicated in bombings, assassinations, and graftโhave been withdrawn en masse.
Sensational cases like the 2015 Holey Artisan cafรฉ attack (linked to Jamaat affiliates) and the 2009 Pilkhana mutiny (with BNP ties) have seen key accused released on “technicalities” or outright dropped.
Yunus’ defenders claim this is “reconciliation” in a polarised nation, but it’s a euphemism for surrender. By gutting the judicial spine, the regime has emboldened the extremists who once plotted Sheikh Hasina’s downfall, trading justice for a fragile peace that favours killers over victims.
In the Faruk case, the timing is damning. The 15-year trial dragged on under Sheikh Hasina, only to collapse under Yunus. Evidence that once pinned 114 suspectsโwitness testimonies, forensic traces of bloodied weapons, even Jamaat’s self-incriminating cableโnow dissolves into “doubt.”
Is this incompetence, or complicity?
Yunus’s government, propped up by student protesters and tacitly allied with BNP-Jamaat coalitions, seems allergic to prosecuting the Islamists who amplified the 2024 uprising. Faruk’s family, denied closure, watches as his murderers’ ideological heirs celebrate another win.
A nation’s moral bankruptcy
Bangladesh stands at a precipice. Yunus rode to power on promises of reform, but his regime’s selective blindnessโto Shibir’s axes, Jamaat’s fatwas, BNP’s ballot-stuffingโerodes the rule of law.
The acquittals aren’t just a slap to one grieving family; it’s a green light for campus warlords to hack anew, knowing the courts will blink. If Yunus truly seeks a “new Bangladesh,” he must reverse this tide: Reinstate charges, empanel independent probes, and affirm that no ideology excuses murder.
Until then, Faruk Hossain’s manhole grave mocks the republic. In a country where student blood once sparked revolution, the real crime is forgetting why it was spilt. Yunus’s justice isn’t blindโit’s averted, and Bangladesh pays the price.
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