Murder of S Taher Ahmed

Syed Taher Ahmed was a 58-year-old professor of geology and mining at the University of Rajshahi in Bangladesh and a senior member of the university's planning committee, which evaluated faculty promotion applications. In 2005, his junior colleague and former close friend, Mia Mohammad Mohiuddin, applied for promotion to full professor. Ahmed's review found that Mohiuddin had not completed the required 12 years of academic service and had plagiarised or pirated 10 of his 11 submitted research papers. The planning committee was scheduled to decide the matter on 2 February 2006.

Ahmed travelled from Dhaka to Rajshahi by bus on 1 February 2006 and called his wife that evening to confirm his safe arrival. He did not appear at the following day's committee meeting and could not be reached. His son, Sanjid Alvi Ahmed, travelled to Rajshahi and, on 3 February, discovered his father's body in a septic tank sewer near his university quarters, with a bus ticket still in his coat pocket. A coroner's report placed the time of death before 10pm on 1 February, and police confirmed Ahmed had been beaten to death.

Police investigation focused on Jahangir Alam, caretaker of the university quarters, who had denied seeing Ahmed on the day he disappeared. Ahmed's phone was recovered from Alam's residence. On 10 February 2006, Mohiuddin admitted involvement during police interrogation, and Alam later confessed that Mohiuddin had promised his family a reward — including money, a computer, and university jobs — for carrying out the killing. Alam had enlisted his brother, Abdus Salam, and brother-in-law, Nazmul Alam, to help. Also arrested and charged were Azimuddin Munshi, Alam's father, and Mahbubul Alam Salehi, president of the University of Rajshahi unit of Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir, following allegations raised at a Jamaat-e-Islami rally.

The trial before the Speedy Trial Tribunal in Rajshahi began in June 2007. Alam, Salam, and Nazmul testified that Mohiuddin had hired them for the murder. On 22–23 May 2008, Judge ATM Mesbauddoula sentenced Mohiuddin, Alam, Salam, and Nazmul to death, while acquitting Salehi and Munshi. The acquittals prompted disappointment from university faculty and former vice-chancellors, some of whom said they felt unsafe.

On appeal, the Bangladesh High Court in 2013 upheld the convictions but reduced the sentences of Salam and Nazmul to life imprisonment. Mohiuddin and Alam pursued further appeals to the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, which rejected their plea in 2022, with the Appellate Division concluding that Mohiuddin had killed Ahmed to prevent his promotion application from being blocked. A presidential plea for pardon was denied in mid-2023. Mohiuddin and Alam were executed by hanging at Rajshahi Central Jail on 27 July 2023.