Prof Dr Md Arafat Rahman of the mechanical engineering department is to carry out the routine duties of vice-chancellor of Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET) in the absence of the vice-chancellor, Prof Dr Sheikh Shariful Alam. He has been given the duty for two days, 11 and 12 October.
The students, describing the newly appointed vice-chancellor as controversial, have sent a statement to the media rejecting the assignment of routine duties to Prof Arafat Rahman.
In the statement, sent on Saturday night, the protesting students said: “Our movement continues with the single demand of resolving CUET’s present crisis and reinstating Prof Dr Abu Sadat Muhammad Sayem as vice-chancellor. In these circumstances we plainly reject the assignment of the vice-chancellor’s routine duties to Prof Dr Md Arafat Rahman by the controversial vice-chancellor, Prof Dr Sheikh Shariful Alam.
“A duty conferred by a vice-chancellor whose appointment and position CUET’s students have rejected cannot be considered acceptable in any way. No duty conferred through a vice-chancellor we have rejected can be a basis for our consent, trust or acceptance. This decision will not solve CUET’s present crisis; it risks prolonging it.”
The statement said: “We wish to make clear that this crisis cannot be solved by any kind of temporary assignment or administrative decision that ignores the clear position and single demand of CUET’s students. We will accept no alternative decision other than the reinstatement of Prof Dr Abu Sadat Muhammad Sayem as vice-chancellor.
“We also humbly request Prof Dr Md Arafat Rahman to decline the vice-chancellor’s routine duties. Out of respect for the united demand of CUET’s teachers and students, please refrain from any step that could prolong the present crisis on campus.”
It added: “Our demand is one, our position is one, and our rejection is clear. Our movement will continue until the just demand of CUET’s students is met.”
It is learned that Prof Sheikh Shariful Alam was to travel to Dhaka on the afternoon of 10 October to join a meeting of the University Grants Commission (UGC), which he will attend on 11 and 12 October. Prof Arafat Rahman has been given the duty to keep the university’s administrative and academic work going in that time, until the vice-chancellor returns on 13 October. Prof Sheikh Shariful Alam assigned the duty in an email message on 9 October.
By the university’s custom, routine duties in the vice-chancellor’s absence are usually given to the deans of faculties. This time they have gone to Prof Arafat Rahman of the mechanical engineering department, who is not a dean, and questions are being raised in various quarters of the university.
Asked about this, Prof Sheikh Shariful Alam said: “It is enough to give the duty to any professor. There is no rule that it has to be given to the deans.”
Although he joined online on 24 September, the newly appointed vice-chancellor has not yet come to the campus. He is understood to be staying at the Chattogram Circuit House.
On the evening of 21 September a notification was issued removing Prof Abu Sadat Muhammad Sayem as vice-chancellor of CUET and appointing Prof Sheikh Shariful Alam of Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) in his place.
Prof Sayem had been appointed vice-chancellor of CUET on 27 July. The decision to remove him came only 56 days after he took office. Students began protesting at once, and all the university’s activities, including regular academic work, remain shut because of the movement.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report