Members of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) have partially erased the graffiti that had been painted to commemorate late Chhatra Union leader Moin Hossain Raju, on the wall of the central library of Dhaka University.
Tuhin Kanti Das, the DU unit president of Bangladesh Chhatra Union, said a group of Chhatra League activists, led by their central unit Vice-President Imtiaz Bappi, made the move on Wednesday.
The graffiti had been drawn nearly twenty years ago as a token of respect to Raju, who had been gunned down during a procession in 1992.
“We tried to convince the Chhatra League leaders to spare the graffiti as it was a symbol of protest against terrorism, but to no avail,” the left-leaning student leader.
“We also had pointed out that the graffiti resembled the spirit of protest of Dhaka University, but they turned a deaf ear to our calls,” he added.
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When contacted, Chhatra League President Saifur Rahman Sohag defended the act, claiming they did so since their artworks were earlier erased by different student organisations.
He, however, claimed that the partial removal of the graffiti was not an outcome of vengeance.
Rather, it was partially erased on the occasion of Chhatra League's 70th founding anniversary, to be celebrated in January, said the chief of the ruling Awami League's student front.
Meanwhile, former and presents students of the university criticized the act on social media.
Many of them expressed their resentment as the graffiti was considered one of the best on the DU campus, which also accommodates the famous Raju Memorial, the sculpture erected commemorating the leftist student leader.