Anti-quota movement: Protesters begin procession from DU central library

Students and job seekers have been enforcing the “Bangla blockade” programme for the second consecutive day on Monday to press home their four-point demand, including reinstatement of the government circular issued in 2018 cancelling the quota system in government jobs.

As part of the movement, the demonstrators started the procession under the banner of “anti-discrimination student movement” from the central library premises of Dhaka University at 3:55 pm.

The procession is set to go to Shahbagh intersection, a vital traffic intersection in the city, parading through different streets.

Though the leaders and activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League, student wing of governing Bangladesh Awami League, gathered at Madhur Canteen on the campus with small processions, they did not create obstacles to the anti-quota demonstrators.

The protestors started gathering in front of the DU central library around 3:00 pm. Leaders and activists of Ganatantrik Chhatra Jote, a platform of seven left-leaning student organisations of Dhaka University, reached the area with a procession from TSC (Teachers Student Center) around 3:15 pm.

After the movement in 2018, for the first time, the left-leaning student organisations joined the movement against quota system in government jobs.

The protestors were chanting different slogans against the quota system.

Earlier, the protestors from several universities, including Dhaka University, and several colleges enforced the “Bangla blockade” for the first day on Sunday and laid siege to several vital intersections in the capital city that created huge traffic jams.

The demonstrators have been waging the movement defying classes and exams.

Meanwhile the teachers of public universities have also been waging a movement of their own against the “prottoy” pension scheme.

Due to these two simultaneous movements, academic activities at the public universities have come to a halt.

Apart from the reinstatement of the circular, the job aspirants and students united under the banner of ‘anti-discriminatory student movement’ are also pressing some other demands.

Those include the formation of commission to omit irrational and discriminatory quotas in all grades of government jobs subjected to the reinstatement of the 2018 circular, considering the backward community as per the constitution, closing down the scopes to use the quota facility more than once, filling up the vacant posts reserved for quota on the basis of merit and taking effective measures to ensure a corruption-free, neutral and merit-based bureaucracy.