The ruling party’s student wing, Bangladesh Chhatra League, has unfortunately earned a reputation for violence in recent years, with reports of hooliganism, intimidation, and worse on campuses around the country being a distressingly regular occurrence.
But while BCL’s reach is usually limited to clashes with the student wings of rival political groups and general harassment of students on campus, it is especially troubling when they target the media who are simply trying to do their job by reporting on what is going on. The recent case of Prothom Alo campus reporter Musharraf Shah being assaulted in Chittagong University by the institution’s BCL chapter is simply the latest example in that regard.
The assault was seemingly in response to his newspaper's coverage of how the student party has been running rampant on campuses -- from the expected bouts of violent clashes to targeted assault, illegally occupying halls, and even extortion. According to the allegations, the victim was on his way to the university vice chancellor’s office when close to 20 BCL men stopped him in his tracks and proceeded to assault him over the story he had been working on.
This is, simply put, beyond the pale. The ruling party continues to maintain that the media environment in Bangladesh is free and unfettered, but incidents such as this make it hard to credit their claims in this respect.
The Chittagong University chapter of BCL has been dissolved in light of this incident, and this is a good first step. But more needs to be done for the public to believe that this is the sign of genuine reform in the body. The ruling party student wing has been acting just as out of control in institutions such as Rajshahi University or Jahangirnagar University, and this too needs to be addressed.
We have seen BCL "activists," time and again, getting away scot-free with assault and worse -- and there does not seem to be enough impetus from our government to take disciplinary action against them. Even when the central committee takes action and suspends its men, usually it is for little more than show and nothing much changes on the ground or in the greater scheme of things.
With each act of violence BCL yields its legitimacy as a student wing of the ruling party. With elections around the corner, there will never be a better time for the ruling party to rein in its most troublesome elements. The voters are looking for concrete signs that the ruling party has taken on board the criticisms of where it has fallen short and is committed to addressing them, moving forward.
This is one obvious area in which the party could signal to the country that it is serious when it comes to addressing voters’ concerns and offering a positive vision for the future.
