Rokeya Khatun, stunned by the murder, said she simply failed to understand how a gentle and meritorious boy like her son who was a second-year student of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of Buet could have enemies.

 “I woke Abrar up on Sunday morning and later he left for Dhaka. By the time, I talked to him three to four times on mobile phone. He called me at 5 pm after he reached his hall. After that I didn’t talk to him, although I called him many times at night, he didn’t receive my call,” Abrar’s distraught mother said.

Abrar, 21, a resident of Sher-e-Bangla Hall of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), was pronounced dead around 3am by Buet medical officer Dr Md Mashuk Elahi.

He is believed to have been beaten to death.

Meanwhile, two leaders of Bangladesh Chhatra League’s Buet unit were detained for their suspected involvement in the murder of Abrar Fahad.

Son of Barkatullah, a former auditor of Brac, was the eldest among two brothers. His mother, Rokeya Khatun, is a teacher at a kindergarten school while his younger brother, Abrar Fayaz, is a second-year student of Dhaka College.

His family members said both the brothers came home on vacation 10 days back. Abrar had wanted to stay back home until the 20th of this month but later left for Dhaka on Sunday as he had to finish some studies, they said.

A brilliant student as always, Abrar passed SSC with distinction from Kushtia Zila School in 2015.

They said his HSC results were outstanding as he stood second in the Dhaka University entrance examination and he did well in medical admission test as well.

His uncle, Mizanur Rahman, said it is propaganda that Abrar was a Shibir activist. “It is totally baseless….he was an open-minded and progressive boy. Our whole family is a supporter of Awami League. Abrara used to attend Tablig’s programme and that’s also occasionally.”