He spent a lifetime in promoting the spirit of the Liberation War and secularism through his writings and played a pioneering role in popularising science fiction in Bangladesh.
He gave up a highly-paid comfortable job in one of the world’s most reputed science laboratories in the US to come back home and build the first science and technology university.
Yesterday, Prof Muhammed Zafar Iqbal saw the students of the university that he dedicated his life for beat up and harass their teachers.
A group of teachers, comprising secular and leftist individuals, was observing a sit-in on the campus protesting the vice-chancellor’s corruption and irregularities when men from the Chhatra League beat them up and pushed them away.
Prof Zafar Iqbal did not take part in the agitation but he had wholehearted support for them.
He saw right in front of his eyes how the Chhatra League men, while attacking their teachers, chanted “Joy Bangla,” the quintessential slogan of the Liberation War that inspired hundreds of thousands of freedom fighters in 1971 to give their lives for freeing their motherland.
For hours, he sat in stunned silence in the rain opposite the VC’s office on the campus as he could not believe what he had just seen. He had an umbrella but did not open it as if the cool raindrops were the only consolation he could draw.
“Bangladesh fought the Liberation War with this Joy Bangla slogan; I have never seen a bigger insult to this slogan. I am furious; Chhatra League launched the attack chanting the Joy Bangla slogan,” said Prof Zafar Iqbal, whose father was killed by the Pakistan army in 1971.
“If the attackers are really students of this university, as their teacher I should hang myself to death,” he said in exasperation.
“I am not directly taking part in the [anti-VC] movement, but I have my love and support for the agitators. I have 100% support for the cause of their movement. I stopped working only two months after this VC [Prof Md Aminul Haque Bhuyan] had come because I saw that he tells lies. And I cannot work with anyone who tells lies.
“I am not going to kill myself just as yet, but I am going through tremendous mental pain,” said the legendary teacher, adding that he never thought he would have to see teachers getting beaten by students.
Alleging that the VC was using Chhatra League members, he said: “If the VC thinks that he would be able to stop the movement like this, then he is wrong ... The teachers are doing the movement for saving SUST, not for getting any posts.”
