JU students block highway demanding release of journalist Samsuzzaman

Jahangirnagar University students have blocked Dhaka-Aricha highway protesting the arrest of Prothom Alo staff correspondent Samsumazzaman Shams under the Digital Security Act. 

The students first blocked Aricha-bound lane of the highway at around 3:00pm and the other lane 15 minutes later. The demonstrating students threatened to launch tougher movement if Samsuzzaman is not released from jail and ended the blockade after 45 minutes.

Earlier the students brought out a protest rally from Murad Chattar area. The demonstrating students paraded different streets on the campus and later put blockade on the highway in front of the main gate of the university.

The students chanted different slogans demanding scrapping of the Digital Security Act.

Jahangirnagar University unit Chhatra Union’s organising secretary Alif Mahmud said the words of a day labourer quoted by Shams is words of millions of people.

“The politics of muzzling the press for revealing truth must end. The country will see another mass upsurge if the authorities dare to stifle through Digital Security Act. Shams bhai should be immediately released unconditionally…otherwise this movement from Jahangirnagar University would spread throughout the country like wildfire,” he added.

Samajtantrik Chhatra Front’s university unit vice president Sumaya Ferdous, Chhatra Union secretary Amartya Roy and Sangskritik Jote’s assistant secretary Taposhi Dey Prapti, among others, spoke during the demonstration.