The appointment of some new advisers to the Professor Muhammad Yunus-led advisory council of the interim government sparked protests across the country as different sections of people including the Student Movement Against Discrimination identified them as the associates of the Sheikh Hasina regime.
The government on Saturday appointed three advisers and reshuffled portfolios of some advisers in a major reshuffle in the interim government since its formation on August 8, three days after the fall of Sheikh Hasina regime on August 5 amid a student-led mass uprising.
On the other hand, adviser Ali Imam Majumder who was earlier attached to the office of the chief adviser gets the responsibility of food ministry.
The protesters mainly raised questions about Ali Imam Majumder, Bashir Uddin and Sarowar Farooki.
Since their appointment and getting portfolios, people started criticism about the previous roles of Bashir and Farooki as Bashir was named in a case over killing a protesting student during the July-August movement against Hasina.
New Age Dhaka University correspondent reported that Student Movement Against Discrimination on Monday formed a human chain and held a protest rally at the Anti-Violence Raju Memorial Sculpture on the campus to protest against appointing alleged accomplices of fascism as advisers.
The students’ platform convener Hasnat Abdullah wanted to know the contribution of the advisers in question in the past 16 years and said, ‘We want to know their history of fighting against fascism. We want to know their history of struggle.’
‘If you believe that they are being rehabilitated due to any compromise, you are betraying the students and citizens, and the uprising of 2024,’ he added.
‘People who consider Dhanmondi 32 as their ‘Kaaba’ have been appointed as advisers. We want to know the names of the people who are supporting and encouraging the initiatives to rehabilitate Awami League supporters,’ he added.
Immediate after the advisers’ oath-taking, the student platform leader Sarjis Alam wrote on his Facebook timeline, ‘Thirteen advisers from just one division! Yet, there is not a single adviser from the sixteen districts of Rangpur and Rajshahi divisions in North Bengal! On top of that, supporters of murderer Hasina are also becoming advisers!’
New Age Jahangirnagar University correspondent reported that Jahangirnagar University students demonstrated on the campus on Sunday night, protesting against the appointment of Mostofa Sarowar Farooki as an adviser.
The students, under the banner of the Student Movement Against Discrimination, brought out a procession from the Battala area at about 10:30pm and held a rally at the same spot of the university.
A coordinator of the platform, Tauhid Siam, said, ‘The Awami League government capitalised on Mujibism and built a fascist government. The god of that fascist regime is Mujib, its symbol is the house at 32 Dhanmondi, and its shrine is at Tungipara.’
‘The 32 number house in Dhanmondi is a symbol of how the students demolished the fascist regime. But, Farooki called for renovating the house. Mujib’s sympathisers have no right to be in the government formed by the student uprising’, he added.
The protesters also warned to block the Dhaka-Aricha highway if Farooki was not removed from the position soon.
New Age staff correspondent in Rajshahi reported that students of different educational institutions including Rajshahi University and Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology on Monday held a rally in Rajshahi, demanding decentralisation of power and immediate removal of all Awami beneficiaries including Ali Imam Majumder, Bashir Uddin and Mostofa Sarowar Farooki from the council of advisers to the interim government.
Over two hundred of them blocked one side of the Dhaka-Rajshahi highway at Talaimari intersection at about 4:20pm and held a rally to press home their demands.
Addressing the rally, Golam Kibria Mohammad Meskat Chowdhury, one of the central coordinators of Student Movement Against Discrimination, said that the main objective of the student-led mass uprising was to remove discrimination from everything but the members of the advisory council to the interim government was all centric to a city and a university.
New Age correspondent in Jashore reported that Students Movement Against Discrimination on Sunday night brought out a procession protesting against the appointment of Bashir as an adviser to the interim government and terming him a collaborator of the ousted Sheikh Hasina regime.
Bashir is a younger brother of Sheikh Afil Uddin, a former Awami League lawmaker for Jashore- 1 constituency.
The interim government’s spokesperson Syeda Rizwana Hasan on Monday said that the size of the advisory council had been increased to increase the speed and efficiency of the work of the interim government.
The public’s expectations of more visible government work on law and order and keeping the prices of essential commodities within the reach of the common people have also been ‘taken into consideration’ in the redistribution of offices, the environmental adviser said.
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