Innocent Lives Taken by UT Austin

Photo by David Sucsy

This story is a difficult one to write. It hits close to home for many because it involves family, a college student, a murder, and a university. It is even more difficult to write because I attended the university discussed in the story and experienced first hand the treatment that UT Austin fails to provide for their students. This is the story about how UT Austin took innocent lives and received no blame.

Farhan Towhid, a 19 year old college student, attended UT Austin to study computer science. He had grown up struggling with mental health issues and over time they seemed to only have gotten worse. How did a young boy who had so much potential for his future manage to end every last hope of it?

It goes back to the winter of 2020. Farhan told his roomate, who he was staying with at the time, that he planned to kill his family. Of course being alarmed, his roommate reported it to the university in hopes of preventing these future events. So the big question is...

As a university, if you are faced with this news, what would you do?

UT Austin has money. Plain and simple. UT Austin has resources. They have a Counseling and Mental Health Center (CMHC) which is placed at the university to respond to student crisis and to help students cope effectively with their situation. If, as a university, you are told that a student is planning to commit a mass murder back home, and you know that you have resources to possibly prevent this, wouldn't you use these tools for their advantage? Well, UT Austin did not think of this, in fact, they did the worst possible thing they could do. They expelled Farhan.

If a student is expelled from a university, they are not allowed to stay on campus and are forced to go back home. In this situation, that should have been the place Farhan was supposed to stay away from. Sending the student home seemed as if UT Austin almost encouraged the mass killing.

After being expelled, Farhan withdrew from the university and canceled his housing contract in January 2021. He stayed at home for about two months before it all went downhill. Farhan posted a suicide note on his Instagram over the weekend where he told others that he killed himself and his family. Seeing this post, an alarmed family friend called police and on Monday morning, police found six dead at the once family house. I would now like to respectfully say the names of the innocent lives lost.

- Farhan Towhid

- Tanvir Townhid (brother)

- Towhidul Islam (father)

- Iren Islam (mother)

- Altafun Nessa (grandmother)

- Farbin Towhid (twin sister)

Farhan Towhid and his brother Tanvir had made a pact a few months prior in where they planned to kill these family members and then commit suicide after. In Farhan's suicide note, he wrote "Instead of having to deal with the aftermath of my suicide, I could just do them a favor and take them with me." These words are difficult to hear because from that one sentence alone, one could hear the pain. One is able to hear the cry for help. If only someone knew that Farhan felt this way, maybe this could have been stopped. Oh wait, UT Austin did.

Even though Farhan Towhid and his brother were the ones who pulled the trigger and did the physical act of the mass murder, the university is the one who assisted. If the university actually cared for their students and wanted to help this student to not feel the way he did, they would have gotten help for him. They would have provided him with as many resources as they could. UT has the CMHC on campus that deals with these types of matters. If only UT Austin cared, there would have been a chance to save six lives.

The university received no blame and instead mourned the death of their former student and other lives lost. Some students on campus do blame the university for not taking actions to prevent what happened, but all they can do is feel angry and hurt. So not only did the university assist in taking these innocent lives, but they left these negative emotions in their student body and left a lasting antipathetic impact. Do better.