Death of BRACU student: Pickup van driver held

Police today detained the pickup driver who ran over Brac University student Fahmida Haque Labannya after she fell off a motorbike Thursday.

The pickup driver, whose name could not be known immediately, was detained from Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, this afternoon, Jane Alam Munshi, officer-in-charge of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station, told The Daily Star.

Yesterday, police held, Suman, 23, the biker of the ride-sharing motorbike from Mohammadpur.

In primary interrogation, Suman said that Labannya took the fatal ride from Shyamoli around 10:36am on Thursday, to go to Khilgaon. A jaywalker suddenly appeared in front of the bike, trying to cross the road near National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, prompting him to brake, he said.

Due to sudden brake, Labannya fell off the bike and a pickup ran her over, the police official said quoting the biker. Doctors declared her dead after passers-by took her to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital.

Labannya was a third-year student of computer science and engineering at Brac University.

The accident happened just a month after the death of university student Abrar Ahmed in a road crash that triggered mass protests over unsafe roads and poor traffic management.