A section of students led by ruling Awami League’s student front Chhatra League of the capital’s Jagannath University locked into an hours-long clash with police in the areas adjacent to the university campus yesterday, leaving some 200 people, including 25 policemen, injured.
Around 8:00 in the morning, a group of students locked the main entrance of the university in Lokhkhibazar in old Dhaka and started demonstrating, demanding immediate recovery of “Tibbet Hall” one of the dormitories of the universities.
The land of the dorm located in the nearby Islampur area has remained under the grab of Haji Selim, an Awami League leader, who became a lawmaker in last month’s 10th parliamentary poll by running as an independent candidate from Lalbagh, another old Dhaka constituency.
Haji Selim MP has established a commercial complex named Gulshanara City by demolishing the building of the Tibbet Hall.
When the students started heading towards Islampur around 10:30am, police blocked the students in the Banglabazar area.
As students started pelting bricks at police and police retaliated with several rounds of rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, sound grenades and batons, the entire locality turned into a battlefield. Vehicular movement in the area remained stalled for a few hours. Normalcy in the area did not return until 4pm.
Among those injured were two teachers: Nasiruddin Ahmed, chairman of the English Department, and Abul Kalam Azad, lecturer of the Microbiology Department.
Other hurt in the clash include Shariful Islam, president of JnU unit Chhatra League, Sirajul Islam, secretary of JnU Chhatra League, and a number of other activists of the organisation.
JnU Proctor Asoke Kumar Saha said: “The students have been demonstrating peacefully for a week. But today, there were some misunderstanding between law enforcers and students. But we have successfully settled down the issue through talks.”
Protesting the police attack on students, the university teachers’ association issued a press statement announcing an agitation programme on the campus for Monday.
“Police have no right to attack or open fire inside an historical educational institute without prior permission. This is totally illogical. The police attack on peacefully demo turned the situation violent,” said Sarkar Ali Akkas, president of JnU Teachers’s Association.
The association issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the authorities concerned to withdraw the deputy commissioner of police of Lalbagh Division and the OC of the Kotwali police station.
The university unit Chhatra League has meanwhile expressed solidarity with the teachers’ scheduled agitation programme.
In rebuttal, Harun-ur-Rashid, deputy commissioner of Lalbagh police, claimed that police went on action only after students started being unruly, attacking on buses and trying to break into the market (Gulshanara City). He also claimed that more than 25 policemen sustained injuries when the students attacked on them.
JnU Vice-Chancellor Mizanur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune that an emergency meeting of the university syndicate been convened to decide on the next course of action and forming a committee to probe into the matter.
The Background Story
On Tuesday, February 11, Haji Seilim, former Awami League lawmaker and currently an independent MP from the capital’s Lalbagh area, slammed the Chhatra League for staging violence around the country, especially the skirmishes on the Rajshahi University campus.
The very next day, the JnU unit Chhatra League started an agitation programme on the campus demanding immediate recovery of the Tibbet Hall – now under the possession of Haji Selim.
University sources said it was this very Chhatra League that forcefully prevented general students at least three times in the past from starting a movement demanding recovery of all the dormitories of the university.
Haji Selim, after having failed to get nomination from the Awami League, ran as an independent candidate for the January 5 poll and defeated Awami League nominee Mostafa Jalal Mohiuddin to become the MP of Lalbagh area.
Selim had been an Awami League lawmaker from the same area once before in the 7th parliament.
The Jagannath College in the capital’s Lokhkhibazar area was promoted to the status of a university in 2006. At that time, it was registered experimentally as the only non-residential public university in the country.
The college had a total of 12 dormitories for the students, including the Tibbet Hall, which had not been under its control since 1988. When it was turned into a university, the word was that all those 12 dorms would be recovered and gradually made into residential halls. The authorities so far have managed to bring back only three of those dorms.