The teen in handcuffs and and ropes: Police brutality on 17-year-old Faiyaz

Currently, he is studying at Dhaka College and recently earned a Golden A+ in the 2024 SSC exams, graduating from Shamsul Haque Khan School and College in Matuail, Dhaka.

When Faiyaz joined the protest in the streets of Dhaka with his friends on 18 July, he had no idea that the next few days would change his life forever. 

Like many others in his generation, he had been following the quota reform movement closely, his heart breaking over the news of Abu Sayed’s death in Rangpur and the escalating violence that followed.

The television reports showed scenes of chaos: injured protesters, police confrontations, and a country divided. Faiyaz felt a surge of emotion. “I’m a bit of an emotional person, you know?” he said, shyly. 

But that day, his emotions took over, and he decided he could no longer sit back and watch.

Faiyaz and his friends, fresh from their Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams, joined the protests in Matuail, chanting, “We will not let Abu Sayed bhai’s blood go in vain.” Their voices were loud and impassioned, but the police responded with gunfire, and what happened next would stay with him forever. “I never saw such firing in my life. A student standing right next to me was hit by birdshot, and instantly his chest was all bloody,” Faiyaz recalled. In that instant, the movement he was so passionate about became a battlefield.

After hours of protest, everyone was tired. Faiyaz and his friends did what they could to help. They bought bottles of water and handed them out to the protesters. “Our teachers were with us, encouraging and helping us. We distributed over 20 cases of water bottles.” Faiyaz said. Yet, what they didn’t realise was that they were being watched. Local Awami league men working as police informers had infiltrated their ranks, and soon, his name was on a list.

Days later, on the night of 24 July, plainclothes officers arrived at Faiyaz’s home. They said they just wanted to question him, and he was taken to Jatrabari Police Station simply because he had been distributing water during the protests.

They accused him of many things and the accusations quickly escalated. “My brain went blank and I felt dizzy when they asked me who else I had killed the police officer with,” Faiyaz said. His fear was palpable. “We hadn’t even been out after those two days because the situation was so bad. I hadn’t seen anything like that, let alone participated in any killing.”

But the police demanded a confession, pushing him harder as the hours passed. When he refused to give up the names of his friends, they resorted to torture. “They tied my hands to another person’s shoulder and started beating me with sticks from behind. With the first blow, I nearly lost consciousness,” Faiyaz remembered. “Then they made me lie on my stomach and beat the soles of my feet.” By dawn, his body was bruised and broken, and his spirit was beginning to crack. “It was the time of Fajr, when finally they placed me inside a cell.” Here he met many people who had been picked up for attending the protests.

Faiyaz remembers the police officer’s names: Nahid Ferdous and Zakir Hossain. They also kept verbally abusing him. “I am not used to this. Even my friends don’t swear around me,” Faiyaz said.

However, when contacted, the Assistant Commissioner of Demra zone, Nahid Ferdous, denied the allegation, stating, “What the boy and people are saying is not true. I wasn’t involved in the whole scene.”

Back at home, Faiyaz’s family was desperate for information. “We weren’t given any information,” his older brother Fahim, a master’s student at Jahangirnagar University, said. “At one point, they told us they wouldn’t release him easily; they accused him of doing this and that.” 

With no information whatsoever, his family searched frantically, risking arrest themselves by moving around during a curfew. “My mother was crying, my father was breaking down,” Fahim recalled, his voice heavy with emotion. Even the physical toll of moving around was difficult for his father, a patient of blood pressure. “They were harassing us by sending us from the DB office to Jatrabari Thana to Demar Thana to DB office again. Every day, we stood in the court premises because, according to the rules in Bangladesh, if someone is arrested, they must be produced in court within 24 hours,” Fahim added. 

Meanwhile Faiyaz was moved from Jatrabari police station and DB office after two days. The interrogation continued. 

Faiyaz was kept in a holding cell with over a hundred others. “It was not a place meant for staying,” he recalled. “Three very small rooms with many people crammed inside. Some walking, some resting, some standing” He slept on the floor, his head resting on a bottle. A former student of Dhaka College, Mizanur Rahaman, gave up his sleeping spot for him and handed him a painkiller. “There were some nationally familiar faces,” he remembered. 

After three long days, the family finally saw Faiyaz again on 27 July, being brought out of a Detective Branch (DB) van, his wrists bound by tight handcuffs, his face weary. “The handcuffs were so tight that they left marks on my wrist,” Faiyaz said, pointing at his wrists.

He was presented in front of the court. “The police showed my age as 19, and my remand was approved,” he said. Yet, he was only 17, a minor, legally protected from such treatment. Media coverage and the voice of some veteran lawyers led to his return to court the next day.

Before his second court appearance, that night at the DB office, Faiyaz faced a barrage of questions meant to break him mentally. The Assistant Deputy Commissioner asked him to spell the word “quota” in English. He spelled it: Q-U-O-T-A. The officer mocked him, swearing at him. “He accused me of disrespecting the descendants of freedom fighters,” Faiyaz recalled. The questioning grew increasingly bizarre, with accusations of affiliations with certain political groups such as Chhatra Shibir. “He asked if I prayed five times a day,” Faiyaz said. “I replied that I tried.” The officer then instructed another to check CCTV footage to see if Faiyaz was praying with others.

Eventually, he was taken to court again, and his remand was cancelled the next day. However, he was not released but sent to the Juvenile Development Center.

“At the Juvenile Development Center, they took good care of us. There were many students like me. There was a TV in each house there. Everyone knew me since they saw me on TV,” he said.

“On ’36 July’ (5 August), when we saw that Hasina had fled, everyone jumped in joy, cheering around me. We had a lot of fun that day,” Faiyaz recalled. The next day, his family members went there and took him back home.

But the crazy cricket fan teenager is yet to believe that his heroes were silent the whole time. “I am an avid cricket fan; I’ve watched countless matches, often sneaking away from my parents to do so. We celebrate every one of their victories with fervour. We expected them to be on our side,” he said. 

“So many people have been martyred, so many have been injured, and thousands have been arrested, yet they haven’t spoken a single word for us. Witnessing this has broken my heart,” he added. “And today they came together to protest for just one person [Sakib Al Hasan]. This is shameful for us. I believe this dishonours the martyrs.”

For Faiyaz, the ordeal was far from over, but it had given him a renewed sense of purpose. He was determined to excel in his education and contribute to his country. “I want to become a good person and a skilled engineer who brings about positive change,” he said. 

But his experience had also given him a profound understanding of the limits of freedom in Bangladesh. “I wish we had the kind of First Amendment rights that exist in the US,” he mused. “Our country would progress much further with such rights.”

As Faiyaz settles back into his life, the trauma lingers, but so does the resolve. He is just one of many young people in Bangladesh who have faced violence and persecution.

“In the future Bangladesh, I don’t want to see any situation where students again have to take to the streets,” Faiyaz concluded.