Cops 'torture' RU BCL leader

Police allegedly tortured a Bangladesh Chhatra League leader of Rajshahi University after detaining him on the charge of "verbally abusing" law enforcers on Monday.

Kazi Aminul Islam Lingcon, the BCL sports secretary at RU and a fourth-year student of marketing, was admitted to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital with bruises and cuts.

Lingcon said he was beaten up with sticks by at least 12 policemen.

Protesting the torture, around a hundred students of the marketing department formed a human chain in front of the central library and demanded punishment for those cops.

Lingcon was taken to Motihar Police Station around 6:00pm on Monday, but senior BCL leaders got him released three hours later.

Police alleged that Lingcon was having a noisy quarrel with his girlfriend in the campus's mass graveyard area around 5:30pm when nearby patrols intervened to prevent unpleasant incidents. But Lingcon "verbally abused" them, they said.

Officer-in-Charge of Motihar Police Station Humayun Kabir said he was beaten up but it was not severe. He said disciplinary action would be taken after investigation into the torture.

The university authorities will ask police high-ups to investigate the torture, said Proctor Prof Tarikul Hasan.

Meanwhile, Lingcon refuted police's allegations, saying he, his girlfriend, and another girl were visiting the mass graveyard, leaving their shoes at the bottom of the stairway.

But one shoe was missing when they came back, he said. "He asked the duty police about his shoe but police replied 'are we here to guard your shoe?'" Lingcon said.

At one stage of altercation, they picked him up, he added.