Body of a missing AUST student out of 4 rescued

The body of one of the four missing students of Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST) has been recovered in the sea off the coasts of Saint Martin's Island. A joint rescue team of Fire Service, Coast Guard, Navy and police has recovered the AUST student's body out of four in the Bay off Saint Martin’s at Teknaf Upazila in Cox’s Bazar district on Wednesday, local administration officials and witnesses said. However, the three other missing students could not be traced till filing this report at 10:15pm. The four AUST students went missing when they were swimming in the Bay of Bengal near St Martin’s Island on Monday morning. Thirty-four students of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from the university had been to the island, on an excursion and had checked into local ‘Senjun Hotel’ on Bengali New Year’s Day. All of them went to the sea in the afternoon. Nine of them were swept away by a surge of water. Locals and Coast Guard rescued five of them, while the remaining four went missing. Two of the rescued students – Monfezul Islam and Saddam Hossain – died later. A team of Coast Guard, Navy divers, fire service and local administrative personnel, including police were conducting the search operation in the Bay since Monday. Lt Kazi Harun-ur-Rashid, Coast Guard Station Commander in Teknaf, told reporters that they would keep searching until the all missing students were traced. Prof Abdullah Al Mamun, Chairman of the CSE Department of the university, who rushed to St Martin’s island following the mishap, told bdnews24.com: "We've nothing to do at this moment but wait for the rescuers to find the missing students."