Who is the decision maker at Eden Mohilla College – the college administration or Bangladesh Chhatra League? This needs to be settled. In several audio clips which went viral on social media, Tamanna Jasmin Riva, Eden Mohilla College unit president of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), was heard saying there is none above the (BCL) president of Eden College. Earlier, she threatened several resident students of 4th year that she would drive them out from the dormitory, saying, “If I don’t allot a seat, which of your fathers will give you a seat? Will madams of the hall administration give it? Do madams have the power?”
A Prothom Alo report on Thursday on, ‘Chhatra League all in all at Eden, authority keeps eyes shut: Two students tortured mentally’ reveals the oppression of the BCL leader on campus. General students remain in fear of her. She called two students to room 202 of Razia Begum dormitory and used abusive language and threatened them.
The number of students at the college is nearly 35,000. Against this, there are only 3,310 residential seats at college dormitories. The administration does not allot seats for any student of 11th grade. Taking this opportunity, the BCL leaders manage seats in exchange of money; sometimes they arrange seats for up to 10 students in a four-seated room. For this they charge Tk 10,000-15,000 from each student. Besides this, the BCL leaders compel the students to join their party programmes. If someone fails to attend any programme, they are subjected to mental and physical torture.
Despite the reported incidents of mental torture and threats to two students twice, the college authority remains silent as of now. Principal Supriya Bhattacharya also claimed that the incidents of mental torture and threats to two students were negative propaganda. She told Prothom Alo, “We also want to know, why is there this propaganda? Two separate videos were combined and being publicised. We also want to know, what has happened. This is embarrassing for us.”
What does the principal mean? Would the allegation brought against the BCL leader be false if the two audios are made separate? The BCL leader not only used extremely abusive language to the students, she challenged the authority of the admin as well. The authority’s silence is not only mysterious, this is shameful too. According to the Prothom Alo report, there are two factions of BCL in Eden college. Tamanna is leading a faction. Isn’t it a serious crime to force a student to sign a bond that she talked against the BCL leader at the instigation of the leader of another faction?
It seems the Eden College administration is working at the order of the BCL leader. No educational institution, being run on the people’s tax money, can operate this way. It must not be allowed to operate this way. We ask the education ministry to run a fair investigation of the allegations of seat trading at Eden College. Seats should be allotted based on merits of students, not at the order of any Chhatra League leader. We cannot let a glorious and traditional institution like Eden Girls College be destroyed this way.