A week’s holiday for Durga Puja began at Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET) on Thursday afternoon, and students from various departments began leaving the halls from midday. But a section of the students say they will use the holiday to keep watch and stop the new vice-chancellor (VC) entering the campus. CUET’s teachers’, officers’ and employees’ associations have also decided to observe a full work stoppage.
The students say the newly appointed vice-chancellor, Professor Dr Sheikh Shariful Alam, left the campus with the help of the deputy commissioner and the superintendent of police on condition that he would not set foot there again, and that he was released on that condition. If he tries to enter again, they say, the movement will become tougher.
Priyatosh Chakraborty, general secretary of the CUET employees’ association, said on Thursday: “CUET’s seven-day Durga Puja holiday has begun: the usual weekly holiday on Friday and Saturday, and five days of puja holiday from Sunday to Thursday. Our work stoppage will continue during this time; all administrative work will be shut.”
Deputy Registrar Probir Chandra Bhowmik said: “Under the academic calendar there are five days of puja holiday. A notice is issued in advance every time, but no notice has been issued this time. I have not received one myself. But it is right that the holiday has begun.”
The protesting students said Thursday was CUET’s last working day before the Durga Puja holiday, and many students left the residential halls that day. Normal working days resume at CUET on 25 October. Although the university will be closed for seven days in a row, a large number of students will stay in the halls. The shutdown will continue until their demand is met, though there will be no direct protest programmes during the holiday.
In a press release on Wednesday afternoon, the protesting students said they would stand firm on their demand, and called on the prime minister and the president to intervene to end the crisis.
The release said: “Various quarters are trying to use for their own political interests the movement for our single demand, the reinstatement of Professor Dr Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem. Support for it has even been posted from a Chhatra League page. Some want to present our specific institutional demand as a sign of anti-government discontent, others as anti-state discontent. We reject in no uncertain terms this motivated misinterpretation and these attempts to gain political advantage. Bringing any party to power or removing it from power, belittling the state or campaigning against the government is not the aim of our movement.”
The release added: “We want to make clear that the just demand of CUET’s students is not raw material for any side’s political narrative. Nobody has the right to distort our voice to push someone else’s agenda. Moreover, the memory of the violence, repression and loss of life in the July-August student and people’s movement is for us a matter of deep pain and of accountability. No organisation that denies that experience, or uses the students’ sacrifice as cover for political campaigning, can pose as a moral supporter of our movement.”
A CUET student who did not want to be named said: “Not all students are going home for the holiday; many are staying in the halls. We will stay alert to stop the new vice-chancellor, Sheikh Shariful Alam, from entering. We will keep a regular watch even on the days off. The movement will go on until our demand is met.”
The CUET vice-chancellor, Sheikh Shariful Alam, has meanwhile returned from hospital to the Chattogram Circuit House. On 13 October, after he had been confined in his office for about 34 hours, the deputy commissioner (DC) and the superintendent of police (SP) of Chattogram rescued him. He was then admitted to Chattogram Medical College Hospital.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report