Abrar's Death: 'I asked helper to be behind the wheel'

The owner of the Suprobhat Paribahan bus yesterday confessed to a magistrate that the conductor, as instructed by him, was at the wheel when the vehicle ran over and killed university student Abrar Ahmed Chowdhury on Pragati Sarani last month.

Nani Gopal Sarker also admitted that passengers and pedestrians caught bus driver Sirajul Islam and handed him over to police in the capital's Shahjadpur on the morning of March 19 after the vehicle had hit and injured a college girl.

After the accident, the bus was parked by a road there. Informing Gopal about the incident over the phone, conductor Yasin Arafat said agitated locals might torch the bus. Gopal then asked him to drive the vehicle to a safer place.

Yasin, who had no driving licence, took the wheel and the bus ran over and killed 20-year-old Abrar near the entrance to Bashundhara Residential Area. The conductor committed the offence only to flee the scene with the bus, Gopal told Metropolitan Magistrate Sadbir Yasin Ahsan Chowdhury. 

According to the bus owner, driver Sirajul started a trip from Sadarghat area around 5:45am on March 19 and hit Synthia Islam Mukta, 20, a student of Mirpur Ideal Girls' Laboratory Institute, at Banshtala in Shahjadpur.

The magistrate recorded Gopal's confessional statement after DB Inspector Kazi Shariful Islam, also the investigation officer of the case, produced him before the court on expiry of his three-day remand.

The magistrate sent him to jail after recording his statement at his chamber.

A DB team picked up Gopal from the capital's Mugda early on April 4. The following day, he was placed on three-day remand.

Earlier, detectives arrested conductor Yasin and bus helper Mohammad Ibrahim from separate places on March 27, a week after Abrar's father Brig Gen (retd) Arif Ahmed Chowdhury filed a case with Gulshan Police Station.

Sirajul, Yasin and Ibrahim had given statements before the same magistrate, admitting their guilt.