Political parties must stop raising thugs

The first judicial ruling on the brutal murder of a student has been delivered.

Twenty students of Buet have been sentenced to death for their direct involvement in the murder of Abrar Fahad, a second-year student of the country's premier engineering university, who was beaten to death. Five other students have also been sentenced to life imprisonment by the court for their involvement in the grisly murder that shook the country in October 2019. We appreciate the strong message delivered by the court through this verdict. Without commenting on the merit of the case, we would, however, like to express our sadness at the fact that 20 young people are now facing death penalty.

Right now, we would like to concentrate on the message sent out by the teachers: to end criminality in the name of student politics. In the case of Abrar's death, 12 of the accused were members of the Buet wing of Bangladesh Chhatra League, while the rest were their followers. Over the years, we have seen the student wings of the ruling parties becoming increasingly more violent and involved in all forms of criminal activities. Whenever a party comes to power, we see their affiliated student wing terrorising university campuses and taking over their dormitories. Our once glorious student politics has now become a hostage for criminal elements. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of our independence, it is a great shame that the student movement, which played such a pivotal role in the emancipation of our people, has been reduced to this.

At this lowest point for our student politics, we have to restore civility back into our universities. We have to take this moment to address the moral degradation of values that is taking place at our educational institutions. For years now, we have been witnessing how politicians and major political parties have been using student activists as cronies for their criminal agendas. This is turning more and more young people on the path to becoming hardened criminals.

The misuse of student activists by their political leaders and parties must stop. As we lament the ruthless and criminal behaviour of the ruling party's student activists, we cannot help but wonder the role of their political backers in all of this. At the end of the day, all political parties are responsible for using student organisations as a factory for raising goons to serve their ill interests. Therefore, we call on all our major political parties to self-reflect and bring such practices to an end, so that no more innocent lives have to be lost in the hands of their party activists.