Bangladesh Islami Chhatri Sangstha has strongly condemned and protested a late-night police raid and baton charge on students at the women’s hostel of the Government College of Applied Human Science in Dhaka.
The organisation’s central president, Munjia, and secretary general, Dr Nahiyan Fairuz Nazifa, made the protest in a joint statement on Friday (6 November).
In the statement, the leaders said ordinary students had been protesting peacefully to demand the restoration of hall seats, an end to the accommodation crisis and a stop to institutional harassment. Instead of resolving the problem through talks, they said, the college administration called police onto the campus late at night, and the police then entered the hostel and baton-charged and physically assaulted the students.
They said the entry of male police officers into an educational institution and a safe residence for women students, and such an attack on the students, was unprecedented and shameful, and a gross violation of the rule of law and human rights.
The statement said it was the principal’s duty to ensure the students’ safety and solve their problems, but the principal had instead taken police action against them. The organisation’s leaders said the principal had lost the moral right to remain in post.
They said several students were seriously injured in the police attack and were being treated in hospital, which could not be accepted in any way. They demanded an immediate and fair investigation into the attack, exemplary punishment for those involved, and accountability and the resignation of the principal. They also called for the full cost of the injured students’ treatment to be covered and for the students’ legitimate demands to be met quickly.
The organisation also demanded safe accommodation for women students on campus and the restoration of a proper environment for learning.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report