The Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP) Honourable Vice-Chancellor (VC) Major General Bari has urged demonstrating students to call off their protest.
The vice-chancellor addressed protesting students on Wednesday, at the scene of the accident—which is in front of Jamuna Future Park in Kuril, Dhaka—where BUP student Abrar Ahmed Chowdhury was run over by a bus and killed.
He said that BUP students have proven themselves and shown how to prevent chaos in protests, the vice-chancellor then requested the students return to their academic activities.
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After the inauguration of a foot overbridge named after the deceased student, Dhaka North City Corporation Mayor Atiqul Islam, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia and the BUP Vice-Chancellor Major Bari tried to negotiate with students for half an hour but failed.
Massive protest
Abrar's death has sparked a massive protest by the students of his university. BUP students have since been joined by students of other educational institutions.
Although police impounded the bus and arrested its driver, the students later blockaded the busy road and demonstrated, throughout Tuesday, demanding justice for Abrar and capital punishment for those responsible for the death.
They also pressed home their eight-point demand for road safety to be ensured, and called for classes to be boycotted in all educational institutions across the country on Wednesday.
Protests broke out in Dhaka—and across the country in July last year—demanding safe roads and justice, after two students died in a road accident on Dhaka's Airport Road.
Shaheed Ramiz Uddin School and College students Diya Khanam Mim and Abdul Karim Rajib were killed—and several others were injured—when a bus of Jabal-e-Noor Paribahan ploughed into a group of students on July 29, 2018.