Transport workers attack students on campus

Stick-wielding transport workers on Barisal University campus yesterday. At least eight students were injured in an attack by the workers after two bus staff were assaulted by the students earlier in the day. The students claim bus staff often refuse to drop them in front of the campus at Karnakathi and to offer them discounted fares in line with a previously taken decision. On other hand, transport workers say the students every now and then refuse to pay the actual fare and altercate with them. Photo: Banglar Chokh

At least eight students of Barisal University were injured yesterday, as transport workers swooped on them on the campus following an altercation between a group of students and some transport workers over refusal to drop students in front of the campus and give them a concession in bus fare.     
Police charged batons, fired rubber bullets and sound grenades, and brought the situation under control around 1:00pm, said Ziaul Islam, officer-in-charge of Barisal Bandar Police Station.
Meanwhile, four members of university proctorial body resigned in the evening on security grounds, confirmed Registrar Md Monirul Islam.  
In another development, the students at a press conference at the university's main campus in Barisal city around 8:00pm announced that they would boycott classes until the attackers were punished.
Students said an altercation took place around 10:50am between a group of students and a helper of a bus, as they bus staff refused to comply with a previously taken decision on dropping students in front of the university permanent campus at Karnakathi on the eastern bank of the Kirtankhola river, and giving them a concession in bus fare.   
The students then informed the matter to other students. Later the angry students attacked a bus and beat up two transport workers.
Sultan Mahmud, president of Barisal-Patuakhali Minibus Workers Union, said Anwar Hossain and Md Miraj, driver and supervisor of the bus respectively, were injured in the attack.
As the news spread, over a hundred transport workers entered the university campus, beat up students, and vandalised establishments, said the students.    
They also haphazardly parked their vehicles blocking highways that connect at least 17 routes of Barisal, Bhola, Patuakhali and Barguna districts around 11:00am.
Mathematics department Chairman Md Shafiul Alam, also president of university teachers association, said Shamim Shikdar and Toufiq Omar, students of Economics; Bidhan of Law department; Shovon of Marketing; Sayeed of Bangla; and three others were injured in the attack by transport workers.
Of them, Shamim was admitted to Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital, he added.
A tri-party meeting with the university, road transport owners and workers association, and law enforcement agencies will be held today at the Barisal Metropolitan Police office, said Abu Raihan Md Saleh, deputy commissioner of BMC.
Sultan claimed that giving students a stop in front of the university gate was not possible as the road there was sloppy.
So the vehicles stop at the inter-district highway crossing, only a few yards off the gate, he added.  
He, however, claimed that students often refused to pay the fare and engage in altercation with bus staff.