With his right eye grievously injured, Ehsan Rafiq can hardly blink, let alone see.
Doctors said his injured eye could take two months to heal. Therefore, they advised him to take complete rest at home, restricting his movement outside, said father of the Dhaka University student, who was mercilessly beaten up by a band of BCL activists on the campus on Tuesday night as he asked a BCL man to return the calculator that the latter borrowed from him three months ago.
Against such backdrop, for Ehsan, life is not the same as it was before. He was supposed to join a field trip starting from tomorrow organised by his department — Disaster Management and Science. But in the changed scenario, there is no possibility that the sophomore can make it, said his father, Rafiqul Islam.
Yesterday, Ehsan was taken to a private hospital in the capital for a CT scan of his right eye.
“The cornea of his [Ehsan] right eye was badly damaged as he was punched several times in the eye,” said Rafiqul, quoting the doctors at the hospital.
“How can he join the field trip in such a physical condition?” asked the father.
Ehsan secured Golden A+ in both SSC and HSC examinations and is a top student in his class. Hailing from Jhenaidah, Ehsan used to sleep on the veranda of Salimullah Muslim (SM) Hall as he did not have an assigned room. Ehsan is now staying at a relative’s house in Mirpur.
His family is concerned about his study as he is going to miss academic activities. “A semester drop at this stage of academic life will leave an impact on his study in the days to come…,” said the worried father.
On Tuesday night, after the assault, the attackers took Ehsan to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and told the duty doctors that he was injured in an accident.
After primary treatment at the DMCH, he returned to his dorm around 4:30am on Wednesday. Then BCL hall unit President Tahsan Ahmed Rasel and his followers allegedly confined him to Tahsan’s room for eight hours so that the news of the incident could not spread.
At one point, when BCL activists in the room went outside keeping the door open, Ehsan escaped around 2:00pm and went to Bangabandhu Hall. Later, his father rescued him.
Meanwhile, the SM Hall authorities on Wednesday night formed a three-member probe body to investigate the incident.
Prof Sabbir Ahmed, the hall’s house tutor, is the head of the committee while Prof Abu Bin Hasan Susan and Azizur Rahman are its two other members. The committee has been asked to submit a report within seven working days.
BCL central committee suspended three of their activists for their involvement in the incident by “violating” the student body’s “discipline”, according to a press release issued by the organisation on Wednesday.
