Chhatra League must be reined in

There seems to be no end to the criminality of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL). In its latest display of atrocities, two BCL leaders of Islamic University (IU) in Kushtia have allegedly tortured a female student for hours. The two accused are Sanjida Chowdhury, vice-president of the IU BCL unit, and Tabassum Islam, an activist of the same unit. The victim, a first-year student, said she was at the Sheikh Hasina Hall when the accused took her to one of the gono-rooms (common rooms) at around 11pm on February 12, mercilessly beat her, insulted her using obscene language, forcibly stripped her naked, and took videos of her.

According to a written complaint submitted by the victim, after torturing her till 3:30am, the accused threatened that she would be driven out of the hall, and the video would be circulated, if she told anyone about the incident. A report by Prothom Alo revealed that this was not the first time that such an incident happened in IU. On the condition of anonymity, a number of students alleged that another female student was tortured similarly by BCL last year. They further alleged that Sanjida controls a group perpetrating such heinous offenses at the university.

According to another Prothom Alo report coming out on the same day, a male student of Rajshahi University also alleged that BCL members had locked him up in a room and mentally and physically tortured him. He said he had been threatened by the university's BCL General Secretary Naim Islam and 7-8 of his followers to vacate a dorm room that was allotted to him recently. When he refused to comply, they took him to Naim's room, and beat him up.

As the avalanche of media reports on BCL will suggest, its unchecked operation on nearly every university campus in the country has led to similar incidents of harassment and torture – and even murder, as in the case of BUET's Abrar Fahad – of ordinary students and rival political activists alike. We are treated to such horrific news almost every day. Just the day before, for example, this newspaper reported how BCL members are now increasingly getting involved in mugging-related activities in Dhaka University. After over a decade of establishing total control over all campuses – through torture, barbarities and collusion with university administrations – it seems the BCL has now turned into a full-blown criminal gang.

And why wouldn't it, when the ruling party itself has provided it with constant patronage to the effect of making university administrations and law enforcement agencies totally unwilling to take meaningful action against BCL atrocities? Instead of discipling BCL, whose members have been involved in some of the most serious crimes as per the law of the land, ruling party high-ups have blatantly defended it, despite the ever-growing list of victims and protests from all sections of society. We call on the ruling party to abandon this strategy. It must show its commitment to democratic principles as well as establishing the rule of law for everyone.