NATIONAL
BCL activists assault teachers at SUST
Activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League yesterday assaulted a group of Shahjalal University teachers who were protesting the vice-chancellors corruption and irregularities.
After the attack, Prof Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, noted educationist, a secular figure and a popular science-fiction writer who had played a key role in founding the university 30 years ago, sat in the rain in front of the VC office for several hours in protest.
His wife Prof Yasmeen Haque, another founding figure of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), was among the teachers who the Chhatra League members assaulted.
Hundreds of people came down hard on the ruling partys student body as soon as the news and photographs of the attack and Prof Zafar Iqbals protest came up in social and online media.
Witnesses said most of the senior leaders of the pro-Awami League students group and several senior teachers, known for having good relations with the VC, were standing nearby when the attack was launched but they did not stop the attackers.
The teachers group who call themselves the Forum of Teachers Inspired by the Spirits of Liberation War has alleged that VC Prof Md Aminul Haque Bhuyan used the members of the ruling Awami Leagues student front against the protesters.
The teachers some of whom were among the founders of the university accuse the VC of violating rules in recruiting his brother-in-law, making university staff do his personal tasks, misusing public funds, embezzling universitys money to go on foreign trips and discriminating against some of his colleagues.
The forum comprising mostly secular and leftist teachers began protests on April 13, demanding the VCs resignation. A week later, 35 teachers, including Prof Zafar Iqbal, resigned simultaneously from the administrative posts they had been working in addition to their teaching duties.
There are several factions within the university unit of Chhatra League who locked in armed fights on the campus in the past, but over the last few months, the political student group has remained united in the question of what they said was protecting the VC.
The protesters alleged that the feuding factions of the Chhatra League got united behind the VC following an order from the government.
Yesterday, the protesting teachers had a scheduled sit-in programme in front of the administrative building. The VC also called separate meetings of the Board of Advanced Studies at 9am and the Academic Council at 3pm.
Witnesses said that SUST unit Chhatra League President Sanjiban Chakraborty Partha and General Secretary Imran Khan were present when the teachers were being assaulted.
Akhter Hossain, officer-in-charge of Jalalabad police station, tried to bring things under control but the Chhatra League men did not listen to him. When contacted later, the OC refused to make comments. Around 3pm, the teachers forum called off the days programme and announced a half-day work abstention for today. They also said that seven of the protesting teachers have been injured in total.
Terming the attack shameful, Prof Yasmeen Haque told the newsmen: The VC is using Chhatra League to cling to his position The students of the university have attacked their teachers before. I strongly condemn this act by the Chhatra League.
