At the historic Bottola of Dhaka University, where reciting the Quran once brought a show-cause notice, where mosque imams and Quran reciters lost their jobs and where holding an event to welcome Ramadan meant facing disciplinary action, Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir is now openly holding a publications festival, a central Shibir leader has said.
SM Farhad, Shibir’s central literature and publications secretary, said this free environment for practising Islamic culture had returned to the university because of the sacrifice of those killed and injured in the student-led mass uprising of 2024. He was speaking at the publications festival organised by Islami Chhatra Shibir at the Bottola.
“Standing here today, we want to recall some historic events,” he said. “At this Bottola, reciting the Quran brought a show-cause notice, the reciter who led tarawih prayers at the VC office mosque lost his job, and students were put on trial for holding an event to welcome Ramadan or presenting any Islamic culture. Today that same Bottola is witnessing Islami Chhatra Shibir’s publications festival. Here the history of Islam, Muslim heritage and the rich history of Bangladesh have been set out with documentation.”
Recalling the 2024 uprising, Farhad said that because of the blood of those killed and the sacrifice of those injured, nobody here now faces a show-cause notice for practising Islamic culture. “No hafiz has to fear losing his job for reciting the Quran, and no student has to fear a notice of expulsion from the university,” he said.
Describing what he called severe repression and false cases over the past decade and a half, the Shibir leader said: “For the last 15 years, if a Shibir publication was found in any hall of Dhaka University, students were brutally tortured and thrown out. If a diary or a calendar was found, they were branded militants and sued. Students were even blindfolded, taken from their mess and killed in so-called crossfire, and it was then said they had weapons and had fired on the police. In fact, our diaries, calendars and magazines were laid out in front of them as militant material.”
“Standing at this historic Bottola today, we have put all those publications before the whole nation,” he said. “Let the people of the country, Dhaka University’s students and teachers, journalists and neutral observers come and see and judge for themselves what material was really a source of fear for the past fascism. We spoke of Islam and stood against hegemony. We wanted the young generation to grow up with ideals and self-respect, ready to face hegemony. It was this message of truth that they feared.”
Finally, he said that despite all the persecution and conspiracies, Shibir’s publishing work had not stopped in any year, and that its struggle to build a just society, reform the structures of society and keep the spirit against hegemony alive would continue.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report