BCL bids to thwart protests
Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) unit Chhatra League yesterday prevented male students from joining a demonstration of general students protesting the murder of a student on the campus on Tuesday.
Leaders of the pro-Awami League student body, who control the male dormitories of the public university, also compelled resident students to join their procession around 10:30am, overlapping the programme of the general students.
Saad Ibne Momtaz, 23, a final-year student, succumbed to injuries at a private clinic on April 1, a day after Chhatra League leaders had beaten him up with hockey sticks, iron rods and cricket stumps in room No-205 of Ashraful Haque Hall.
The media cited various motives behind the killing, including internal feud, as Saad too was a Chhatra League activist.
"Our Friday's protest saw an unusually lesser number of male students compared to the previous days," said a female resident student of Sheikh Fazilatunnessa Mujib Hall.
Yesterday around 11:00am, students of the university held a mass signature campaign and a procession demanding arrest and punishment of the killers.
"The BCL activity clearly sends us the signal not to wage a movement seeking justice for the murder, otherwise they would not have launched a counter programme," said another student of the female dormitory.
She alleged that many female participants had received threats on mobile phones from unknown callers asking them to keep from the movement.
Still, several hundred female students, mainly from Taposhi Rabeya Hall, Sheikh Fazilatunnessa Mujib Hall and Sultana Razia Hall gathered at the foot of Bijoy 71, a sculpture on the campus, and attended the scheduled protest programme.
Saiful Islam, general secretary of BAU unit Chhatra League, however, denied having prevented anyone from joining general students' programme.
He claimed that they were with the general students and their two activists, Sujoy Kumar Kundu and Rukonuzzaman Rukon, whose involvement in beating up Saad had been reported, were expelled permanently from Chhatra League.
BAU Proctor Prof Shahidur Rahman Khan is, however, unaware of Chhatra League forcing students to join its programme or preventing them from joining the general students' programme.
He said the university had already served show cause notices on Sujoy and Rukon, whom police had arrested in connection with the murder on April 3.
On Thursday, a court has sent the duo to jail.
A meeting of the university's Board of Residence and Students Discipline is due on April 8, when the fate of the arrestees would be decided.
The killing of Saad is very much similar to the murder of Zubair Ahmed, a final-year student of Jahangirnagar University and a Chhatra League activist. He succumbed to injuries on January 9, 2012, about 13 hours after his party mates had beaten him up on the campus.
Over the last five years, Chhatra League has been frequently making headlines in the media for its criminal activities in public universities.
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