The agitating teachers of Jahangirnagar University confined their vice-chancellor at his home for the third consecutive day yesterday to demand the implementation of the chancellor’s directives.
Under the banner of “JU Teachers-Students and Officers-Employees United Forum” the protesting teachers shut the two entrances of the vice-chancellor’s house and took position in front of it on Monday night after the VC denied them a meeting.
The forum members also seized JU administrative office on November 20 and all administrative activities have been halted since then.
VC Prof Anwar Hossain claimed teachers were not allowing access to the employees of his residence.
JU registrar Abu Bakr Siddique and Proctor Prof Md Muzibur Rahman asked the agitating teachers to let the domestics in, but the teachers did not pay any heed to their request.
The forum’s member secretary Prof Kamrul Ahsan said: “We are not preventing any officials or employees from entering the VC’s residence.
“Actually, they do not want to associate themselves with the incumbent VC because they have already expressed solidarity with us,” he said.
From November 20, JU teachers confined two pro-VCs Prof MA Matin (education) and Prof Afsar Ahmed (administration) and, after 12 days of confinement, released both of them on Monday night.
Chancellor Abdul Hamid on November 6 asked the VC to hold a senate election immediately and select a VC panel through the senate in the line with the JU act.
Following the Chancellor’s directives, authorities arranged JU Central Students’ Union (Jucsu) polls and teachers’ representative polls in order to reform the current senate as some 83 of 93 senate members’ tenure had already expired.
Teachers’ representative polls have been suspended because of the teachers’ movement while Jucsu polls were halted due to the parliamentary elections on January 5.
Agitating teachers are demanding VC panel elections through the current senate while JU authorities think that the reformation of the senate was a must for holding such an election.
JU VC Prof Anwar Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune: “I do not want to see any mudslinging in the VC panel polls. I am determined to reform the expired senate through which I will take initiatives to select the VC panel in the line with the JU act and the chancellor’s directives.”
A section of teachers backed by former VC Prof Sharif Enamul Kabir and pro-BNP teachers have been protesting against Prof Anwar Hossain for nine months, bringing some 18 allegations against him.
A probe committee formed by the Education Ministry to look into the allegations is yet to publish the report.