Dhaka University (DU) students Sunday blockaded the capital’s Farmgate intersection, the busiest road of the city, for around an hour, protesting an attack by Tejgaon College students that happened on the same day on a DU students’ bus.
Rony Khan, a passenger of “Hemonto,” a bus for the DU students that operates on the Dhaka-Savar route, said four Tejgaon College students wanted to board the bus while it was stuck in traffic at Farmgate.
The Tejgaon College students pulled some of the DU students out of the bus and beat them up when they refused to allow them onto the bus as the bus is reserved for DU students, he said. Rony said Tejgaon College students called some of their fellows with whom they pelted bricks at the bus, injuring five female students who were inside.
The two groups then engaged in a scuffle there, but it ended shortly as the DU bus left the place in hurry.
Following the incident, the Tejgaon College students vandalised two other DU buses on the same route.
When they heard of this, about 100 DU students rushed to the scene and staged a demonstration from around 4:20pm blocking the Farmgate intersection. They students demanded that the police take action against the vandalism.
A police team led by the Officer-in-Charge of the Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police station Abdul Momen came to the spot and assured the DU students that the police would take action against the Tejgaon College students.
DU Proctor Saiful Islam and some other teachers went to the scene to bring the situation under control.
The DU students lifted the blockade at around 5pm, but traffic took more than half an hour to normalise.
