PM concerned over Siddiqur: Quader

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is concerned over Siddiqur Rahman, Minister Obaidul Quader said today while visiting the student who sustained dangerous injuries to his eyes during police action on college students at Shahbagh.

The issue was discussed in today’s cabinet meeting, Quader, the road transport minister, told reporters at the National Institute of Opthalmology. The premier is deeply concerned over him.

If needed, Siddiqur will be taken abroad for better treatment, Quader said. We will see how a tear gas canister came to hit his eye, he added in response to a query.

Siddiqur was injured when police lunged with batons and tear gas canisters to disperse students of seven colleges who were demonstrating for examination dates – fearing backlog in study.

The third year political science student of Titumir College has already lost vision in his right eye and is having intermittent vision in the left, doctors said after surgery yesterday.

‘Did gas canister really hit him?’

Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia, who accompanied the minister at the hospital, raised a question on whether a gas canister fired by policemen really did hit the student.

Only his eyes have been injured, not the nose, he told reporters. The police are investigating as to whether Siddiqur was actually hit by a tear gas canister, he added.

The Dhaka police chief termed the Shahbagh incident “undoubtedly sad” and said that the investigators have received two narratives of the incident. “We are investigating the matter.”

Source: thedailystar