JCD men, cops charge Azad attack protestors
Over 100 students, including women, and five journalists were injured at Dhaka University yesterday as police and key ruling party's student wing launched unprecedented multi-pronged attacks on demonstrators gathering to protest the stabbing of prominent writer Humayun Azad.
Police batoned demonstrating students at will while the frenzied Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) activists beat them with sticks and captured podiums that offered platform to protesting teachers and students, witnesses said.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The JCD, student wing of ruling alliance leader BNP, torched eight symbolic coffins that the agitating students carried in demonstrations after the life-threatening butcher's knife attack on Azad, author of over 50 books, in front of Bangla Academy on Friday.
Police also used over 100 teargas shells to break the agitators while JCD activists armed with lethal rods, sticks and tree branches swooped on the protesters planning to lay siege to the home ministry at the secretariat, demanding resignation of Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury.
"Many students were bleeding from the head and were taken to hospital for treatment," a journalist on the scene said.
"A policeman kicked me and beat me with his baton when I fell in the Curzon Hall corridor. I don't know whether they are employed to sully the campus," said a woman student, requesting not to be named.
Police trampled six students to bleed underfoot and picked them up after their harrowing ordeal close to Curzon Hall area, witnesses said.
Tension ran high on the campus as the demonstrators under the banner Humayun Azad Mancha decided to hold a solidarity gathering at Aparajeo Bangla at 10:00 am today and the JCD announced a programme at the same venue to foil demonstration.
JCD activists also threatened that any demonstration protesting the attack on Azad, remarkable for his outspoken comments, often against fundamentalists, would be resisted.
MINDLESS VIOLENCE
The trouble flared up when police in riot gear swooped on students who removed a barbed-wire barricade near the High Court Mazar on their way to the secretariat from the Aparajeo Bangla at about 12:30am.
As police used baton indiscriminately, the demonstrators hurled stones at the law-enforcers, injuring four of them.
In the face of 'mindless violence by rampaging policemen', the students ran for cover in the Curzon Hall and police fired volleys of teargas canisters in an aggressive bid to dislodge them from there.
About 15 minutes later, nearly 100 policemen entered the hall breaking open the gates and batoned the students dragging them out of classrooms, library and washrooms, largely from physics and soil science departments, 'unleashing unspeakable horror in the highest seat of learning'.
"Three to four male policemen caught me at the physics department and beat me in the back savagely like marauders," said Taslima Akhter, president of Bangladesh Chhatra Federation.
About 60 students and four journalists were injured in the raid, with Daily Ajker Kagoj Staff Reporter Mainul Hossain Chowdhury suffering severe head and leg injuries in police beating.
Mainul, who sought police mercy giving his identify, was undergoing treatment at the Orthopaedic Hospital with four stitches in the head and a fractured leg.
Police chased down some students near the pond between Fazlul Haq and Shahidullah halls, beat them up and fired some teargas shells into the residential halls.
FURTHER MAYHEM
After the Curzon Hall mayhem, demonstrators marched towards Vice-chancellor SMA Faiz's office at about 2:20pm to protest the police action.
As the gate of the registrar's office building was locked, they staged a sit-in there, hemmed in by a large contingent of police.
About half an hour later, a procession of about 100 JCD activists led by its President Sahabuddin Laltu and General Secretary Azizul Bari Helal barged to the scene and jumped on the agitators as police stood by.
Witnesses said the activists slapped, kicked and beat up the students with rods, sticks and tree branches and tore the clothes of women students, injuring 30 protesters.
The JCD activists assaulted Firoz Chowdhury, chief photographer of the Daily Prothom Alo, as he tried to capture the scenes of violence.
They dragged him near a bus parked behind the administrative building and beat him again before snatching his camera and cellphone.
Firoz was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital with chest and leg injuries and later shifted to Shamrita hospital.
ARSON
The demonstrators broken up by the violence regrouped at the Fine Arts Institute at about 3:00pm where they became the victims of another raid by JCD men.
They attackers damaged a podium on the institute premises, torched the coffins used in previous demonstrations in symbolic protest against the attempt on the life of Azad.
Entering the institute, the JCD activists searched for students who joined the recent protests and beat them in the style they unleashed in front of the registrar's office building.
They also threatened them not to join any further agitation on the campus in protest against the attack on the 56-year-old writer.
The JCD activists also forced camera crews of two private television channels from the scene.
Some 12 attackers dragged Bablu, a student, to the street and showered him with slaps and kicks before using sticks.
Prominent among the injured included Bangladesh Chhatra Federation General Secretary Kaniz Fatema, Samajtantrik Chhatra Front central leader Anupam Saikat Santo, Biplobi Chhatra Maitro Joint convener Mahbub Liton, Dhaka university Chhatra Union General Secretary Sayeda Akhter, Pahari Chhatra Parishad leader Anju, Sashi and Subrato Kumar.
Pro-BNP cultural organisation Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha held a cultural programme last night on one of the daises the JCD captured from protesters last night.
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