2 students die after 'taking liquor'

Two Rajshahi University students died allegedly after drinking unauthorised liquor yesterday, just a day after the death of a Russian engineer working at the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant allegedly due to the same cause.

Another student of Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology, who also drank the liquor, is undergoing treatment at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH).

Police said the three had a bottle of “vodka” together at a private dormitory in Rajshahi's Monafer Mor area on Friday night.

When they complained of feeling unwell early yesterday, other students of the dormitories rushed them to RMCH where duty doctors pronounced the two dead.

Dr Nazmul Huda, chief of the RMCH's medicine unit, said they were suspecting “alcohol poisoning” might have caused the deaths.

“Such a poisoning may occur either due to excessive drinking or having unauthorised liquors,” he said, adding that a number of tests were required to confirm the actual reason behind the deaths.

They sourced the bottle from a person in the city's Shaheb Bazar Zero Point, police added.

Meanwhile, police detained six people, including a pharmacy owner and his two staff, yesterday morning in connection with the deaths and their alleged involvement in illegal liquor trade.

Of them, owner of Star Medical Hall Mustafizur Rahman Shahin and its two staffers Md Wasim and Md Shahin were released around 1:30pm following a city-wide strike of the pharmacy owners protesting their detention.

However, Amir Zafar, deputy commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police, denied the claim and said they had released the three as they found them to be “innocent”.

Identities of the three other detainees, who were still in police custody, were not revealed by the law enforcers.

Earlier on Saturday, three Russian engineers working at the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant were taken to RMCH as they fell sick allegedly after drinking unauthorised liquor.

Of them, Belyy Dmitry, 42, was pronounced dead by the doctors while the two others -- Logachev Lev, 40, and Mikael Dima, 40 -- were admitted to the hospital.