City communications disrupted for hours, 20 vehicles vandalised as Jagannath University students press for 4 demands
Jagannath University students went on a rampage damaging cars and halting traffic for the second consecutive day yesterday to press home their demands including continued government funding for the university.
Agitating students vandalised at least 20 vehicles and blocked Nababpur Road, Johnson Road and English Road at Roy Saheb Bazar in Old Dhaka, witnesses said.
Around 2,000 students under the banner of “General Students” took to the streets around 9:00am, disrupting traffic movement on Gulistan-Sadarghat and Nayabazar-Narinda roads for nearly four hours, they added.
Police charged batons to disperse the demonstrators who responded with brickbats. Law enforcers also picked up 29 students from Sutrapur and Kotwali areas for vandalising cars and obstructing traffic movement, police sources said.
The situation, however, became normal after 11:00am when police took control of the entire area, locals said.
On Sunday, nearly 3,000 students of the university closed a number of city streets and smashed some 20 vehicles demanding government funding for the institution beyond 2012, ridding its dormitories of illegal occupiers, removal of the branch office of Bangladesh Bank from the campus and supply of adequate number of buses for their transport.
Around 30 students were injured when police charged truncheons to disperse the students that day. Twenty students were detained from different parts of the city on the first day of the protest.
According to the Jagannath University Act, the government will discontinue funding it after 2012 and the university will have to run on its own income.
A number of students, however, said their movement will continue until the government meets their demands.
They said they want immediate fulfilment of their demands, and that they are not satisfied with the assurance of the education minister and the university authorities.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid on Sunday said the decision on funding Jagannath University will be made after consulting all stakeholders.
“I spoke to the university’s vice-chancellor and the members of the University Grants Commission. We will find a way to solve this problem through discussions with everyone,” he told journalists on Sunday.
JnU Proctor Ashok Kumar Saha termed yesterday’s violence ill-motivated, saying a negotiation with the government on funding issue is underway.
“Somebody might have influenced the students to destabilise the campus and the country”, he added.
Vice-chancellor Prof Mejbah Uddin Ahmed said some militants and those who want to thwart the war crimes trial were behind the vandalism.
-With The Daily Star input
