High-Profile Prison Escape: Muntasir Al Jamie on Death Row for Abrar Fahad Murder Flees Kashimpur Jail

On Tuesday, February 25th the Department of Prisons admitted that Muntasir Al Jamie, one of the 20 death row convicts in the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) student Abrar Fahad murder case had escaped from Kashimpur High-Security Jail on August 6th 2024. The admission has sparked outrage over how long it took for authorities to acknowledge the escape and protests erupted in BUET.

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Reports say Al Jamie fled from jail taking advantage of security lapses within the prison. It is believed that such an escape couldn’t have happened without inside help from someone in the jail. An inquiry is underway to investigate whether his escape was due to negligence or a planned one.

Muntasir was sentenced to death for his involvement in the brutal killing of Abrar Fahad in October 2019. Abrar, a second-year BUET student was beaten to death inside the campus’s Sher-e-Bangla Hall by the members of the ruling party’s student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) for criticizing government policies on social media. The murder was captured on CCTV leading to nationwide protests demanding justice.

Now pressure is mounting on the authorities to apprehend the escaped convict, especially since questions about how a high-profile convict could escape from one of Bangladesh’s most secure prisons arose.