On 16 July 2024, during one of the deadliest weeks of the uprising, a student at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur, Abu Sayed, was fatally shot by police during a protest outside the university campus. His death, and the circumstances surrounding it, soon became a symbol of resistance against the Bangladeshi state’s disproportionate use of force in response to the protests. The slogan ‘Buk petechi guli kor’ (‘Shoot me, I bare my chest’), which had emerged within a nationwide movement against sexual violence in 2020, came to also stand for Sayed’s death and all it represented, signalling his defiant posture—arms spread, chest bared—in the moments before he was shot.

Together with Drik Picture Library in Bangladesh, Forensic Architecture investigated the state’s claims about Abu Sayed’s killing and uncovered new evidence that contradicts the Bangladeshi government’s official narrative.

The associated exhibition Shoot Me, I Bare My Chest will be open from 3–8pm, 11 – 26 July 2025, at Drik Picture Library in Dhaka.