The activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) and Islamic Chhatra Shibir (ICS) have locked into a gunfight at Chittagong University (CU) on Sunday evening over a trifling matter.
However, no casualty was reported in this connection till filing of this report at 9:40pm, said police and campus sources.
Campus sources said some BCL men beat up a Shibir activist in front of Suhrawardy Hall at around 5:30pm as the Shibir activist took some snaps of BCL’s human chain programme on the campus in the morning.
Centring the incident, some other Shibir men who were playing football in the field adjoining to the dormitory chased the BCL activists which triggered a clash between both the groups at around 6pm, sources said.
At one stage, the clash turned into a gunfight while BCL men took position in front of Shah Jalal Hall and Shibir men took position inside Suhrawardy Hall after increasing their manpower on the both sides, sources also said.
Equipping with firearms, both the parties traded at least one hundred rounds of bullet where at least 25 crude bombs were exploded during the melee at the Suhrawardy Hall intersection, said an eyewitness.
Receiving information, proctors body and police forces rushed to the spot and police dispersed both the party men by firing rubber bullets, said Officer-in-Charge (OC) Md Ismail Hosssain of Hathazari police station.
“Police also opened about 20 rounds of gunshots to take the situation under control,” he said.
Alamgir Tipu, former organising secretary of CU unit of BCL, said Shibir men swooped on their followers firstly.
“At first, Shibir men chased our men while at one stage our party men tried to protest the Shibir’s attack but they hurled crude bomb to us,” said the BCL leader.
Md Tawhid, organizing secretary of CU unit of Shibir, did not make any comment over the matter.
CU Proctor Siraj Ud Dowla said the university authorities sat into an emergency meeting to take necessary steps over the incident while the meeting was going on at the time of dispatching the report.
Earlier, BCL activists formed a human chain on the campus’s Shaheed Minar premise at around 12:30pm demanding cancellation of all seat allotments at the dormitories of the university which are dominating by Shibir.
Tension mounted on the campus where panic griped amongst common students and other neighbouring residents of the campus due to sudden clash.
Assistant Superintendent of Police AFM Nizam Uddin of Hathazari circle in Chittagong district said additional police forces were deployed on the campus to evade any kind of untoward situation.