Jahangirnagar Univeristy vice-chancellor has outright refused to resign in reaction to a 24-hour ultimatum issued by the university teachers’ association.
“I am the elected vice-chancellor and I will not resign,” said the Vice-Chancellor Prof M Anwar Hossain yesterday at a press conference.
He said some teachers, plus a section of the media have wrongly interpreted his speech.
Prof Anwar also played one of his own audio clips before the journalists and made this position clear.
The VC said he did not order BCL to contain the agitating teachers. What he asked them to do was hold back the Hefazat activists only.
Jahangirnagar University Teachers’ Association (JUTA) at a separate press conference vowed that they would take a tough line with their demand for the VC’s resignation.
In his address, Prof M Anwar Hossain said resignation is not the only solution. There are some other options to address the ongoing crisis on the campus.
He urged the agitating teachers to come around to a discussion.
Prof Anwar however at one stage said: “I will resign if every single person of JU wants me to do so.”
JUTA has been protesting against the VC for not taking action against JU unit BCL secretary who allegedly assaulted a teacher of the university.
The incumbent VC said JU unit BCL secretary Razib Ahmed Rasel must be punished if he is found guilty by the investigating team.
According to JUTA, the movement against the JU authority is to protest their inaction on a number of incidents on the campus.
They said JU VC did not take any step against those that committed crimes on August 1 and 2 of 2012 and February 12 this year.
On August 1, some BCL activists stabbed a student over a trivial matter and police fired rubber bullets on general students who protested against the incident.
On February 12, 2013, when a master’s student Md Abdul Malek of Statistics Department died, Prof Anwar called him a Shibir activist and his hall provost Prof Dr Khabir Uddin a Jamaat member.
The teachers’ association alleges that the VC delivers irrelevant speech and does not keep his word.
BCL secretary Razib Ahmed Rasel, who allegedly assaulted Md Nurul Haque, a syndicate member and Economics Department lecturer, was not suspended though the vice-chancellor assured the teachers he would do so.
On May 2, 2013, Prof Anwar alleged that the former JU vice-chancellor Shariff Enamul Kabir leads a faction of teachers only to regain the vice-chancellor’s post.
Prof Dr Md Mozammel Haque of JU Archeology Department said the incumbent VC spends time on different talk shows, cancelling important academic council meeting.
Session jam is rising and both the students and teachers are suffering for him. He should leave JU immediately, added Prof Mozammel.
Several JUTA teachers alleged that Prof Anwar is only concerned with his own interest. That’s why he finds Jamaat-Shibir and Hefazat everywhere.
They claimed when any teacher or student protests anything preferred by the vice-chancellor, he brands them as either Jamaat-Shibir or Hefazat.
JUTA president Prof Dr Ajit Kumar Mazumder said: “We will hold a general meeting tomorrow and decide our next course of action.”
The boycott of class and examination will continue till then, he added.
Prof Ajit held the vice-chancellor only responsible for the JU current situation.
