Dhaka-Sylhet Highway Crash Claims SUST Student Munira: Dies Under Treatment in Dhaka, Campus in Mourning
Munira Akter, a student of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), who was seriously injured in a road accident in Sarail, Brahmanbaria, has died. She passed away on Saturday while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Dhaka — the journey back to her campus turned out to be her final journey.
Munira was a student of the university's Civil Engineering department from the 2025-26 academic session. The Civil and Environmental Engineering Association confirmed the news of her death in a press release on Saturday night.
According to the release, on her way back to the university campus from Dinajpur, a passenger bus collided head-on with a covered van on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway in the Bertala area of Sarail upazila in Brahmanbaria on Saturday morning.
In that terrible accident, 2 passengers were killed on the spot and at least 15 people were injured. Munira was among the injured.
University student Junaid said Munira was seriously injured in the road accident at around 7am on Saturday. She was later sent to Dhaka by ambulance for better treatment.
According to the release and her classmates' accounts, she died of cardiac arrest while undergoing treatment at Bangladesh Multicare Hospital in Dhaka.
The university's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dr Khairul Islam, expressed deep shock at Munira's untimely death. 'We are deeply saddened by Munira's untimely death,' he said.
The Vice-Chancellor said that since learning of the incident, he had kept in regular contact with Junaid. Teachers and alumni of the Civil Engineering department immediately went to the hospital, and the department's senior teacher Professor Dr Md Zahir Bin Alam was also present there.
The Vice-Chancellor also said the university authorities had borne all the expenses of Munira's treatment from the very beginning.
A large share of the students of this Sylhet university have to travel to and from the campus from different parts of the country along the Dhaka-Sylhet highway. It was in an accident on that very highway that a young student of the university has now lost her life — the incident has therefore raised fresh questions about road safety alongside the grief across the campus.
The death of this student of the Civil Engineering department's 2025-26 session has cast a deep shadow of mourning over her classmates, teachers and alumni. No one can accept such a sudden end to a promising life.
Treatment of the other passengers injured in the accident is continuing. And demands have been raised for a full account of how the Bertala accident happened and for responsibility to be fixed — so that no more student's name is added to this procession of deaths on the highway.
