BCL men 'abduct' CU teachers' recruitment test candidate

Emdadul Haque
Emdadul Haque

A candidate of a teachers' recruitment test at Chittagong University was allegedly abducted by Bangladesh Chattra League activists on the day of his viva voce on 27 March.

Emdadul Haque, a former student of the university's Zoology department, came first in both his honours and master's examinations, achieving CGPA 3.88 and 3.96 on a scale of 4. His results earned him the Prime Minister's Gold Medal, too.

Emdadul has filed a written complaint with the vice-chancellor. He said he went to the campus at 9:00am that day to appear at the test.

As he was waiting in front of the lift on the ground floor of the university's administration building, a number of students, including Anowar Hossain (session 2011-12), Asif Mahmud (session 2010-11), Moqsed Ali (session 2010-11), Jahidul Hassan and Rafiq Islam (session 2013-14), Asir Uddin (session 2014-15) and Sharif Uddin (session 2013-14) picked him up and took him to the central playground of the university.

Barring Sharif Uddin, all were from the Zoology department. They demanded money and beat Emdadul up, before taking his cell phone and Tk 5,000, according to the victim.

The abductors then beat him again taking him to the university's pagoda. When the viva voce was over around 12:30pm, they handed him over to the police saying that he was a Shibir activist. The police later let him go, Emdadul added.

Sources at the university said there were a number of 64 aspirants for two faculty positions in the Zoology department. The test was held as per the schedule. The alleged BCL men are members of the shuttle train-based BCL organisation 'Choose Friends With Care', this correspondent has learnt.

Vice-chancellor (VC) Iftekhar Uddin Chowdhury, however, denied receiving any such complaints till Sunday afternoon. "It is not possible to retake the test. If the candidate is eligible, he can apply again when there is another circular," he said, adding, "If I get written complaints, the proctor and police will be informed to take proper steps."

When contacted over phone, Sharif Uddin, assistant secretary of the recently defunct university BCL committee, admitted to beating Emdadul.

"Emdadul was a Shibir leader and he led Shibir in a clash with Chhatra League in 2012 and [we have] beaten him for that," he said, adding that Anwar Hossain, Asif Mahmud, Rafiqul Islam, Jahidul Hasan and Asir Uddin joined them in the beating, too.

"Emdadul was the first from the department to win a gold medal. Someone might have done this to him fearing his calibre," said Md Manzoorul Kibria, a professor of the Zoology department who was Emdadul's superviser in different research projects.

*This report, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been re-written in English by Nusrat Nowrin.