The Rajshahi University authorities and Kendriya Sangskritik Jote on Sunday have observed the 'Student-Teacher Repression Day' amid the demand of withdrawal of cases filed against thirteen students of the university.
On August 22 in 2007, during the then army-backed caretaker government, law enforcers assaulted RU teachers, students and employees who lodged protest at an assault by army men on some Dhaka University students during a football match on the DU university central playground on August 20 of the same year.
Marking the day, Rajshahi University authorities held a discussion programme at RU senate building while RU vice-chancellor Professor Muhammad Mizanuddin presided over the discussion and pro-VC Professor Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan spoke, among others.
Among the victims of repression on that day, RU former vice chancellor Professor Saidur Rahman Khan, Professor Golam Sabbir Sattar and Professor Dulal Chandra Bishwas addressed the discussion.
RU Kendrio Sangskritik Jote, a platform of students' cultural organisation in the university also brought out a procession on the campus to mark the day and held a short rally in front of Senate building at 10:30am where noted writer and former RU teacher Hasan Azizul Haque, Professor Abdus Sobhan, Malay Bhowmick and Dulal Bishwas spoke, among others.
Speakers demanded an intensive investigation to find out the cuprites beyond the conspiracy of repression on teachers and students on those days.
Speakers also urged the government and authorities concerned to withdraw the cases filed against 13 students of Rajshahi University immediately.
After the RU campus violence, the then acting registrar of RU, Professor Muhammad Shafi, sued 13 RU students named and 500 others unnamed on August 23.
Though the cases against teachers of Dhaka and Rajshahi universities were withdrawn, the cases against students are yet to be withdrawn, speakers informed.
August 20, 2007, a student protest erupted at Dhaka University as a number of army men beat up three students and insulted a teacher of the university at the central playground of DU during a football match.
Later, the student protest spread across the universities of the country that continued from 20 to 23 August in 2007.
Following the unrest at RU campus on August 22, the caretaker government arrested some RU teachers and filed cases against them.
The victims include Prof Saidur Rahman Khan, Prof Abdus Sobhan, Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan, Prof Golam Sabbir Sattar, Prof Malay Bhowmick, Prof Dulal Chandra Biswas, Prof Salim Reza Newton and Prof Abdullah Al Mamun.
