Bodies 4 missing AUST students rescued

Members of Bangladesh Army and Coast Guard with the help of local administration personnel and fishermen recovered the bodies of the four missing students of Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST) in the Bay off Saint Martin’s Island on Wednesday. The dead are Sabbir Hassan, Shahriar Islam Noman, Uday Mahmud and Golam Rahim Bappi. With these, the death toll in Cox’s Bazar tragedy on Pahela Baishakh rose to six. Two other AUST students – Imran Habib, 22, and Saddam Hossain, 21 – died on Monday – Bengali New Year’s Day. Meanwhile, 24 students made a tearful return to Dhaka on Tuesday after a group of 34 students of Computer Science Department of the private university went on a visit to St Martin’s at Teknaf Upazila in Cox’s Bazar district on Sunday. A total of 34 students of the varsity had been to the island, near Cox’s Bazar town, on an excursion and had checked into local ‘Senjun Hotel’. All of them went to the sea on Monday afternoon. Nine of them were swept away by a surge of water. Local fishermen and Coast Guards rescued five of them, while the remaining four went missing. Two of the rescued students – Monfezul Islam and Saddam Hossain – died later. Coast guard and locals rescued five of them in critical condition and rushed them to local hospital where two of them -- Imran Habib, 22, and Saddam Hossain, 21-- died later. The three other rescued students – Farhanul Haque, Asif Mostafa and Iftekhar Mahmud Faisal, undergoing treatment at Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital, were now out of danger, the hospital’s Medical Officer Amir Siraji said. AUST Prof Mamun said that the students had not informed the university authorities about their visit. They had arranged trip on their own to celebrate Pahela Baishakh 1421 after their exams ended. Sunviraj Haque, a student of the Department of Electrical and Electric Engineering at the university, said “After the BSc examinations ended on April 9, we decided to celebrate Pahela Baishakh at St Martin’s island on their own,” according to bdnews24.com.