BCL men beat up protesters

Bangladesh Chhatra League activists at Jagannath University yesterday allegedly assaulted students campaigning for a class boycott called to protest additional fees charged by the authorities.
At around 11:00am, as some 10 protestors went to JnU political science department and asked the students to leave their classrooms, a group of BCL men swooped on them.
They were driven out of the campus.
Asked about the incident, Vice Chancellor Professor Mejbah Uddin Ahmed said actually some unruly students faced the wrath of other students when they behaved roughly with Prof Anwara Begum, head of the department. They were saved by Anwara herself as she sympathised with them.
Prof Anwara said they were very rude to her and their attitude was not “like students”.
In another development, the authorities issued notices upon eight students, asking them why punitive measures will not be taken against them for creating anarchy on the campus, behaving badly with teachers and obstructing the admission process.
The eight are Asif Newaz of accounting and information systems department, Raqibul Islam of psychology, Lucky Akhter Brishti and Zahidul Islam Sajeeb of English, Shariful Islam Chowdhury of social science department, Tahmida Islam Tania of political science department, Masud Rana of botany and Faruk Ahmed of Bangla department.
They have been asked to respond within the next three working days.
The decision of issuing the notices came at a meeting of the JnU disciplinary board in the afternoon with the vice chancellor in the chair.
The authorities also brought charges against the eight over obstructing students in taking part in examinations and classes and forcing them to leave the classroom.
Mejbah Uddin Ahmed told The Daily Star, “We have only served a show cause notice, showing tolerance. We could have taken tougher action.”
Zahidul Islam Sajeeb, one of the eight, told The Daily Star the authorities were trying to stop the movement by harassing them.
“We neither behaved badly towards Anwara Begum nor obstructed any student from attending to his academic activities. We just conducted a campaign for our cause,” said Sajeeb. He was also among those forced out of the campus in the morning.
He alleged they were attacked by BCL men while they were conducting their campaign.
Since January 3, students have been demonstrating against a decision of charging freshers an extra Tk 5,000 as development fees. They announced the class boycott on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the university authorities banned rally and processions on the campus from Wednesday.
Defying the restriction, pro-ruling party teachers brought out a procession hailing the arrest of former Jamaat ameer Ghulam Azam on war crimes charges.
The teachers had permission, the vice-chancellor said, when asked.