Students protest until midnight, VC says SUCSU election on 9 or 10 December

A group of students at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) in Sylhet staged a sit-in for about five hours Thursday night demanding announcement of the date of the university’s central student’s union (SUCSU) election.

Then the protesting students withdrew their sit-in after receiving assurances from the Vice-Chancellor (VC) regarding the announcement of the election date. They staged the sit-in from 8:30 pm to around 1:15 am last night.

According to the protesting students, the university authorities had called a press conference Thursday evening to announce the election date. However, at the scheduled time of the press conference, the authorities postponed it, citing unavoidable reasons.

In response, the students accused the administration of attempting to derail the SUCSU election, locked the administrative building and began a sit-in. Leaders and activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir, Chhatra Andolon, Chhatra Majlish and the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement also joined the protest.

SUST Vice-Chancellor AM Sarwaruddin Chowdhury went to the sit-in and assured the demonstrators, “The election date would be announced today, Friday evening.” Addressing the protesters, the VC said, “The SUCSU election will be held on either 9 or 10 December. We will hold this election in a festive atmosphere.”

Following this assurance, the students withdrew the sit-in and unlocked the administrative building.

Earlier, from 8:30 pm the students staged a sit-in for nearly two hours in front of the university administrative building. Later around 10:00 pm, they moved to the Vice-Chancellor’s residence and continued their programme there until around 1:15 am.

At around 11:00 pm, SUST Treasurer Ismail Hossain and Proctor Mokhlesur Rahman came to speak with the students, but the demonstrators rejected their assurances. Eventually, at around 12:45 am, Vice-Chancellor AM Sarwaruddin Chowdhury and Pro-Vice-Chancellor Sajedul Karim arrived. After discussions, they communicated their decision to the students.

Palash Bakhtiar, convener of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement at SUST, said, “The administration keeps saying the election will be held, but they are not announcing the date. The announcement was supposed to come today (Thursday) but, they postponed the press conference.”

“We are saying this delay is a conspiracy to sabotage SUCSU election. We had demanded the election be held before the 8th. We are withdrawing for now based on the VC’s assurance, but if the delay continues, we will announce tougher programmes,” added Palash Bakhtiar.

When asked why was the press conference called and then postponed, the VC replied, “One of the concerning people was in a meeting and another was in the medical centre, so we thought we would hold the meeting tomorrow (Friday). It was a misunderstanding. The dates now in discussion are 9 and 10 December. The election will be held on one of these dates.”