Rajshahi University: Students of Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology (RUET) on Monday submitted a memorandum to the university vice chancellor with a five-point set of demands including overall security of the students on campus, reports UNB. While receiving the memorandum, RUET Vice Chancellor Professor Mohammad Rafiqul Alam Beg assured the students he would look into their demands.

Their other demands include ensuring exemplary punishment of those 'perpetrators' who vandalised the university's Shahid Abdul Hamid Hall on March 8 and injured at least eight students and looted valuables including laptops, cameras and mobile phones worth Tk 15 lakh, taking effective steps to recover those valuables, taking effective steps to control the outsiders' nuisances and taking effective steps to provide a violence-free campus for the students.

On March 8, two groups of ruling Awami League's student front Bangladesh Chhatra League RUET unit locked into a clash at the university's Shahid Abdul Hamid Hall with various sharp weapons, iron rods, sticks and pipes over a previous dispute, leaving at least five leaders and activists of the two groups and three general students injured.

Among the injured, glass and ceramic department final year student Anamul Kabir Rajon was still undergoing treatment at Apollo Hospital. He received severe injuries in his head and left legs.

Following the incident,  the BCL central committee of Bangladesh postponed its RUET unit committee and notified university unit president Naim Rahman Nibir and general secretary Chowdhury Mahfuzur Rahman Topu to explain in 24 hours why organisational actions would not be taken against them for violating organisation's rules.

On the following day, the university authority also declared its mid-term vacation for seven days which is scheduled to begin on March 22. In the memorandum, the students alleged that the 'perpetrators' vandalized a hall, beat up general students, looted thirty-four laptops, thirty mobile phones, five DSLR cameras, other electronic valuables and money from the students, that altogether would be worth Tk 15 lakh.

"Now we are passing our days in fear due to the clash. We cannot carry out our regular academic activities on the campus fearing that any clash may ensue over the incident again," mentioned the memorandum.

They also urged the university authorities to ensure exemplary punishment for those perpetrators who were involved in the March 8 night incidents.