Editorial
Gunfight on DU campus
Rein in unruly BCL elements
BCL activists continue to engage themselves in incidents indicative of their method of settling or clinching any issue through applying force. Two factions of the ruling party's student wing traded gunshots on the DU campus on Tuesday, following a scuffle over the presence of a student in a DU dormitory.
It is pretty much obvious that the campus of the country's premier university is infested with armed goons masquerading as student leaders and activists. However, it is difficult to dismiss such internecine clashes as internal affair of a particular student organisation. Obviously, the whole academic atmosphere of the university is greatly vitiated by such activities. The general students get panicky and feel extremely insecure when they watch gunfights taking place on the campus.
This is, however, neither what the ruling party promised before the elections, nor what people expected of them. It is a long established truth that strident student politics is a major threat to congenial atmosphere in the educations institutions. And it is no secret that the major political parties have a lot to do with this problem, though they, too, are occasionally vocal against student politics in its present form. But the question is, what have they done to contain criminal activities committed under the cover of student politics? They have never gone beyond telling us that student politics has a glorious past, but invariably stopping short of acting to end the present sordid state. And they are not known to have done anything against the errant members of their student wings. It is a sad tale of keeping a potentially dangerous source of trouble alive, only to make petty political gains.
The fight witnessed on Tuesday between two factions of the BCL was triggered by their plan to establish supremacy through mopping up any opposition within their own organisation. And that is the root cause of things going wrong on the ruling AL's student front. Obviously, they will try to convert this supremacy into more perceptible things like tender manipulation and extortion.
The AL high command can ill afford to ignore the developments. Their student followers have become too powerful and too defiant to suit the needs of a university campus. They have to be disarmed before they cause more damage. And the top AL leaders have to take charge of the situation. The pure law and order approach can produce results only when there is no political interference and influence -- a truth realized and revered in theory, but not in practice. The ruling party has to do more than what they have done so far to deal with the BCL.
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