Student tortured by Chhatra League wants to return to campus, but...
The student who was tortured at the hands of Chhatra League in Kushtia Islamic University wants to return to campus, but she is suffering from a sense of insecurity.
Speaking over mobile phone to Prothom Alo Wednesday morning, the student said the student counselor had called her from the campus and asked her to meet him at 12:00 noon. However, she was in her village home at Pabna and so was wondering how she could go in time. Also, she was gripped with a feeling of insecurity after having complained to the university administration about the incident.
This first-year student alleged that she had been detained for four and a half hours in the 'gono room' of the university's Deshratna Sheikh Hasina Hall and tortured. The victim said that she had been tortured by the followers of the vice president of the university unit of Chhatra League, Sanjida Chowdhury. The torture was carried out under the leadership of Sanjida Chowdhury.
During the torture, she was stripped of her clothes and filmed, abused verbally and threatened with death if she told anyone of the incident. The student on Tuesday afternoon submitted a written complaint to the university proctor, hall provost and student counselor.
Sanjida Chowdhury is a student of the statistics department of the 2017-18 academic year at the university. The other accused is Tabassum, a student of the finance and banking department of the 2020-21 batch. The victim is of the same department.
The student told Prothom Alo that she had gone to the campus with her father on Tuesday. After submitting the written complaints, she returned to Pabna that night. As she was unwell, she consulted a physician and was taking medication as prescribed. She was wanting to return to the campus but felt insecure.
She said, "I have no place to stay at the campus. I do not even know if anyone will allow me to stay there. Even if there are no classes, many newly admitted students are roaming around the campus, going to the departments, meeting each other. I am missing out."
Earlier, on Tuesday afternoon, she accompanied her father and submitted written complaints to the university proctor, hall provost, student counselor and other offices. She described details of the incident in her written complaint, saying first year classes had started on Wednesday. She had been staying as guest of a student at the Deshratna Sheikh Hasina Hall. On Thursday a student called Tabassum told her to meet her in her room. As she was not well, she couldn't go on time and that infuriated them. When she did turn up at the room, they threatened to evict her from the hall. They demanded to know how she dared stay at the hall without informing them. On Saturday night they tortured her physically and mentally and tried to throw her out of the hall. The matter was settled when the provost and assistant proctor intervened.
The written complaint stated, "At 11:00pm Sunday night, seven or eight girls including Sanjida Chowdhury alias Antara took me to the 'gono room'. They began to slap and hit me. When I asked why they were hitting me, they covered my mouth and started slapping me even harder. They were saying, 'Do you know who we are, how bad we are? Do you know what we can do? Do you have any idea about us?' I even tried to beg them to leave me, holding their feet, but they kicked me and abused me in foul language. They hit my chest and tied a gamcha around my neck to strangle me." They made her lick a dirty glass clean and filmed that. They then said, 'Strip.' When she refused to take her clothes off, they began to beat her up again, forcefully stripped her and made a video of her."
The victim went on to say, they have the videos. They said, 'If you tell anyone about this, we will make the videos go viral on social media so you will not be able to face anyone anymore.' Sanjida had said, 'If you complain to the administration, we will kill you and feed you to the dogs. Remember what I have said.' After torturing her, they sent her to another gono room in the early hours of 3:30am.
The victim went to her village home on Monday morning. Sanjida and others who had taken part in the torture called her several times, but she was too scared to answer. She came to campus with members of her family on Tuesday morning and submitted written complaints to various offices there.