Pankaj Karmakar
Most of the state run universities and colleges across the country including the apex Dhaka University are gradually getting tourmoiled as Bangladesh Chhattra League (BCL), student organisations of the ruling party Awami League (AL), has become aggressive to establish supremacy over different campuses.
This has so happened despite Prime Minister and party chief Sheikh Hasina’s warning that BCL units should refrain from creating violence in campuses.
Being vindictive to the arch-rival Jatiyatabadi Chattra Dal (JCD), the BCL leaders and activists have become enthusiastic to take revenge, as they suffered during the last seven years of BNP-Jamaat government and caretaker government tenure.
Not only with the JCD or Shibir activists, the BCL leaders and activists are engaged in intra-party clash and are using firearms to beat rival groups.
Yesterday BCL and JCD took face-to-face position at the Dhaka University campus, as JCD men gathered themselves to bring out a procession aiming at placing memorandum to the Vice-Chancellor demanding co-existence in the campus.
At late night day after yesterday (March 14), clash between two rival groups of BCL took place at Tejgoan Polytechnic Institution where both of the groups firearms and shot bullets at each other.
Following the series of clashes Between BCL activists and Jamaat-e-Islami backed student organisation Chattra Shibir on March 13, the second largest public university of the country, Rajshahi University (RU) and also in five others educational institutions were closed for indefinite period.
During the clashes Sharifuzzaman Nomani, General Secretary of RU Chattra Shibir unit, was killed, while more than 30 others were injured.
After the fierce clash in Rajshahi, the Chittagong University authority had put an embargo on all kinds of political activities for at least 10 days to avoid violence in the campus.
Last week, in Jagannath University two separate groups loyal to the university unit president Kamrul Hassan Ripon and general secretary Abu Syed Gazi involved in clash to establish supremacy over the campus.
Last month, Jahangirnagar University turned into a battlefield, as two rival groups created violence to establish supremacy in the campus. During that battle at least 40 were injured of both groups.
The general students and academicians are apprehending tremendous session jams as a result of these violences in different educational institutions across the country.
General students also alleged that the law enforcement agencies acted as spectators, as the parent organisation of BCL is in state power. “The police arrested some student styled cadres during these violences. But they will certainly be freed after a few days by the intervention of influential quarters and will create violence again,” said a DU student on condition of anonymity.
The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on February 18 at a public meeting convened by BCL announced that if anyone created violence in the campus, he would be punished, whoever he is.
The BCL activists are creating violence at least in one educational institute everyday across the country.
In this regard talking to the New Nation, BCL president Mahmud Hasan Ripon said, “The anti-liberation force has been torturing the general student for a long time in Rajshahi University. There, BCL tried to drive away the anti-liberation force in co-operation with the general students.”
“We are trying hard to create a pro-academic atmosphere in all the educational institutions across the country. We have taken initiative for proper investigation into the Polytechnic incident,” he added.
Courtesy of The New Nation
