Whole week gone
Jamaat-e-Islami yesterday announced to enforce the third bout of hartal for tomorrow, aimed at wasting the only working day left this week, in protest against the Supreme Court's upholding the death penalty of its leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman.
With this latest announcement of hartal, the exams of around 21 lakh students of schools and madrasas slated for tomorrow have met the same fate as the previous ones -- a further postponement.
The Junior School Certificate (JSC) and Junior Dakhil Certificate (JDC) examinations were supposed to begin on November 2. But the authorities could not hold the exams that day thanks to the Jamaat-sponsored general strike across the country.
Hence, the JSC and JCD exams were set to start from tomorrow. But again, the commencement of the exams has been delayed with the hartal tomorrow and now the students will have to wait until next Sunday for their exams to begin.
A back to back nationwide shutdown for Wednesday and Thursday forced the authorities to reschedule the JSC and JDC exams.
The English first and second paper exams scheduled for tomorrow and November 6 had to be rescheduled for November 19 and November 20. Frustrated, guardians and students alike expressed grave concern about frequent shifting of dates of the exams.
Due to the first round of 72-hour hartal that started from Thursday, the education ministry deferred Bangla first and second paper exams originally scheduled to take place on November 2 and 3 and set November 14 and 15 as the new dates for the exams. This deferral ruined the young learners' preparations and also put undue mental pressure on them.
Apart from the JSC and JDC examinees, tomorrow's hartal has also put some 522 O-level and A-level students in uncertainty as they are yet to know whether their exams scheduled for tomorrow will take place or not.
The exams on accounting, biology and mathematics of O- and A-level students are scheduled to take place tomorrow under Cambridge International Examinations conducted by the British Council at Oxford International School in Dhanmondi and Scholastica, Mirpur branch.
But neither the Bangladesh authorities nor the British Council could say anything if the exams will take place.
Teachers of different English medium schools told The Daily Star that they have informed the authorities about the hartal but are yet to get any reply.
Mohitur Rahman, head of the accounting department at Dhanmondi Tutorial, said students will have to pay dearly if the exams are cancelled.
On October 29, Jamaat called a 72-hour hartal in two phases protesting the death penalty of its ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami by the ICT-1.
The second phase of the first spell of hartal ended at 6:00pm last evening as Jamaat yesterday announced to shorten it by 12 hours due to holy Ashura today, a government holiday.
On November 2, the party called another nationwide hartal for Thursday in protest against its leader Mir Quasem Ali's death sentence for war crimes.
Education ministry said the JDC examinees will have to take their Arabic first and second papers on November 19 and 20 instead of November 5 and 6.
In yesterday's countrywide hartal, the Jamaat-Shibir activists blasted several crude bombs and vandalised five shops and four vehicles in Mohammadpur and Mirpur areas of Dhaka.
Pickets blasted a crude bomb in front of Manipur High School and College around 11:00am, but none was reported hurt in the incident, said Md Atiur, sub-inspector of Mirpur Police Station. Law enforcers detained a man in connection with the explosion, he added.
A huge number of public and private vehicles were seen plying the streets in Dhaka yesterday. Trains and launches operated normally but no long-route buses left Dhaka for other districts from any of the inter-district bus terminals.
Police picked up 25 Jamaat-Shibir men from different areas of Dhaka, Chittagong and Bogra amid stray incidents of vandalism. Meanwhile, five people were injured in a clash between the activists of Jamaat and Awami League in Bogra yesterday.
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