Twenty-four years after BUET student Sabikun Nahar Sony was killed in crossfire during a politically motivated turf war over a university tender, the case remains a haunting symbol of campus violence as two of the convicted perpetrators continue to evade justice.
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Monday marks the 24th anniversary of the killing of Sabekun Nahar Sony, a student of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) whose death remains a grim landmark in the history of campus violence in Bangladesh. Sony, a second-year chemical engineering student, was killed on June 8, 2002, when she was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between two rival factions of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), the student wing of the then-ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
The violence erupted over the control of a 20-million-taka dormitory construction tender. Tensions had been escalating for weeks between the faction led by BUET Chhatra Dal president Mokammel Hayat Khan (Muki) and the group led by Dhaka University JCD leader Mushfiq Uddin (Togor). On the afternoon of the shooting, as the two sides exchanged fire near the university’s female dormitory, a stray bullet struck Sony, killing her instantly.
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The murder triggered nationwide outrage, drawing thousands of students and professionals into protests. In the subsequent investigation, law enforcement agencies launched sweeping raids, recovering firearms and arresting dozens of suspects from various residential halls and surrounding areas. Confessions obtained from arrested members later detailed a coordinated battle for supremacy fueled by financial disputes over campus procurement contracts.
A lower court delivered its verdict on June 29, 2003, sentencing three individuals—Togor, Muki, and professional gunman Nurul Islam Sagar—to death, while handing down life sentences to five others. In 2006, the High Court commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment and acquitted two of the defendants. Of the six people ultimately convicted, four were detained, but Muki and Nurul Islam remain fugitives.
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The legal aftermath continued for years. Togor, who was released after serving his sentence, was re-arrested by the Rapid Action Battalion in September 2024 for his alleged involvement in illegal arms trafficking. Sony’s father, Habibur Rahman Bhuiyan, passed away in February 2023, carrying the lifelong burden of seeing his daughter’s killers evade full justice.
In recognition of her tragic legacy, BUET renamed the dormitory where she was killed the “Sabekun Nahar Sony Hall” in 2021. However, Sony’s death marked the beginning of a cycle of bloodshed at the institution. Subsequent years saw the murders of student leaders and the high-profile killing of Abrar Fahad in 2019, an event that led to the university’s decision to ban student politics entirely.
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