Today (Tuesday) marks the sixth death anniversary of martyred BUET student Abrar Fahad. On this occasion, the “Anti-Aggression Eight Pillars” monument has been inaugurated at Palashi Square of Dhaka University. The memorial was unveiled at 3 p.m. by Abrar’s father, Barkat Ullah, during a remembrance meeting organized by the Abrar Fahad Memorial Council.
It may be recalled that the first version of the Eight Pillars was built on October 7, 2020 — the first anniversary of Abrar’s martyrdom — by the Student Rights Council under the leadership of Akhtar Hossain, who is now the convener of the Abrar Fahad Memorial Council and the member secretary of the National Citizen Party (NCP). However, within 24 hours, the structure was demolished on the order of the Dhaka South City Corporation. Akhtar Hossain was later attacked and tortured by activists of the banned Chhatra League for leading the construction effort.
The inscription on the memorial reads: “My journey into the eternal cosmos, to the end of infinite space,” — a quote that Abrar himself once used on his Facebook profile.
Notably, on October 5, 2019, Abrar Fahad had posted a Facebook status expressing disagreement over Bangladesh’s water and gas agreements with India. Following this post, on the night of October 6, he was brutally beaten to death by members of the banned Chhatra League inside room 2011 of Sher-e-Bangla Hall at BUET.