BUET students demonstrate protesting entry of BCL leaders on campus at midnight
The students of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) have been demonstrating protesting the entry of the leaders and activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) on the campus on Wednesday midnight.
Terming the incident as disgraceful, the demonstrating students on Friday announced boycotting all the academic activities, including term final exams scheduled to be held on 30 and 31 March, from a media conference at the BUET Shaheed Minar.
Student politics at BUET was announced forbidden following the killing of the university’s student Abrar Fahad by some of the BCL leaders and activists, also students of the university, in 2019.
After the media conference, the students took position in front of the Directorate of Students’ Welfare (DSW) and were seen chanting various slogans that were critical of party-line politics on the campus.
The demonstrating students at the conference highlighted five points at the press conference. Those are: expelling Civil Engineering department’s 21st batch student and BCL central committee member Imtiaz Rabbi permanently and cancelling his dormitory seat, as he was the main organiser of the political gathering on the campus on Wednesday night violating the university’s rules; expelling the assistants of Imtiaz Rabbi from their dormitories and from campus for different terms; clear answer from the BUET authority on why and how the outsiders with political identities entered the campus and whether legal actions would be taken against them; resignation of DSW if the first two are not met soon; and a written undertaking about not taking any action against the demonstrating students to harass them.
The demonstrating students in their written statement at the media conference said some of the top leaders of a certain political organisation entered the BUET campus through the main entrance around 1:00 am on 28 March even though no general students are allowed to enter the campus after 10:30 pm due to security reasons. But the outsiders with political identities entered the campus at midnight. Not only them, one after another political leaders and activists gathered in front of the BUET main entrance and entered the campus with a bouquet after 2:00 am with a huge procession.
It was also said in the written statement that such a huge political gathering on the campus of a university, where organisational politics is forbidden, at night and entering of outsiders is disgraceful to the dignity of the campus. This also seriously questions the safety of students and the campus. The university administration and the Directorate of Students’ Welfare in no way can avoid their liabilities in this regard.
The statement further said students find it impossible for outsiders, who are involved with politics, to enter the BUET campus at midnight avoiding the eyes of the authorities and DSW. Even after a day and a half of the incident, no response has been received from DSW regarding the incident.
It is still unclear how they got permission from the authorities to enter the campus at midnight. These incidents on the campus hamper the security of the general students, it added.
The BUET students were staging the demonstration in front of the DSW office while filing this report at 5:00 pm.