Jagannath University (JnU) students staged protests yesterday, demanding the recovery of nine residential halls of the university that have been occupied by land grabbers for the last two decades.
Hundreds of students, led by Bangladesh Chhatra League’s JnU unit President FM Shariful Islam and Secretary Shirajul Islam, brought out a procession from the university campus at around 11am and marched through different streets of Old Dhaka.
Later, the students staged a sit-in programme in front of the campus’ liberation war sculpture, as well as blockading the Ray Saheb Bazar intersection for an hour that caused disruption in traffic movement in the area.
Addressing the sit-in, BCL President Shariful said it was disappointing to see that land grabbers had become public representatives.
“Haji Selim [lawmaker from Dhaka 7 constituency], who was a day-labourer of Sadarghat terminal, now earns a huge sum of money by forming a criminal group. He also grabbed a university hall and built a market there, leaving the students in worse condition,” Shariful added.
BCL Secretary Shirajul alleged that the university authority had utterly failed to ensure a single dormitory for the students during the nine years since the Jagannath College had been transformed into a university.
The students are also scheduled to continue their demonstrations in front of the JnU main gate at 9am today.
According to university administration, the JnU has so far been able to recover three (Habibur Rahman, Bani Bhaban and Dhupkhola field) of the 12 grabbed residential halls.
ATM Shafiqur Rahman, former member secretary of the university’s hall recovery and building committee, told the Dhaka Tribune that the recovery of dormitories had stopped because of the lack of cooperation from government officials.
The necessary documents are passed through different departments of the government, only for the process to be restarted when it reaches the final stage, Shafiqur said, adding that such practices were caused by the lack of cooperation among department officials.
Mohammad Kamal Hossain Sarker, estate officer of JnU, said he did not have clear knowledge about the recovery process and would be able to say details after learning more about the issue.
However, JnU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mijanur Rahman said: “We have already contacted the land ministry to solve the dormitory problem of the students and we hope that we would be able to do so shortly.”
