Editorial
Campus disturbance hits a new abyss
Why the root cause was not removed early on?
This time the battleground was Jagannath University and some of the parts of old Dhaka and the perpetrators were students of the university. Needless to say innocents were among the more than 100 injured apart from the dozens of vehicles having been damaged. Not only has the image of an educational institution been completely tarnished, it has also cost greatly in terms of street mayhem, damage to property and disruption of public life. And, inevitably, the university has been closed sine die in the usual escapist manner to let the tension subside.
And looking at the students' demand one cannot but sympathise with them although the manner in which they went about demonstrating their grievances must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. And what was the demand of the students? They wanted to have the 12 of their halls of residence, held in occupation for various purposes by different elements, restored to them.
It defies logic and imagination to see that a dozen or so of the students' dormitories have been under occupation of various people including the DCC, the local criminals who have commandeered six of the 12, and would you believe, even policemen! And all the illegal occupation started with the commencement of the regime of the erstwhile coalition in 2001.
It is shameful to see commercialisation of students' halls at the expense of the students. The grievances of the students are genuine and it is the university authorities who must be called to account for their utter disregard of the students' need. It was only in February 2008 that the VC sent a memo to the government regarding the status of the dormitories. We fail to understand why he had been quiet all this time, and why were the police authorities and the DCC not approached directly to vacate the halls.
We are rather surprised at the observation of the state minister for home that these were well-orchestrated acts of vested quarter to destabilise the situation in the country. May we ask, if the administration had specific information that this would happen, why did the administration not move in time to preempt the perpetrators?
We would hope that the administration would move to get the halls free of illegal occupation, and in this regard, the home ministry can commence the process by getting the police to vacate their occupation.
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