DU VC seeks police help to recover CCTV footages
The VC said this to the worried guardians and the representatives of civil society, who met him in the afternoon and submited a memorandum to him seeking safety of the students of Dhaka University.
The vice chancellor also answered to various questions of the guardians and the civil society members.
He, however, avoided answering directly to two questions on ensuring the presence of all student bodies on the campus and trial of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) men for their controversial roles on the campus at different times.
Leaders and activists of BCL, the student organisation of ruling Bangladesh Awami League, and a section of Muktijuddha Mancha on Sunday night beat up DUCSU VP Nurul Haque and his followers at his office room and vandalised it. The incident left at least 24 people injured.
Writer and activist Rakhal Raha read out the memorandum there.
The memorandum said, “The attacked students sought help of your administration. But without taking any action to stop the incident, the members of your administration and you assisted the attackers indirectly by threatening the students under attack to be expelled. Such allegations were brought against you and your administration in the past too. We haven’t seen you brought any of the perpetrators to book after investigating into those incidents.”
It also said the students of the university are being the victims of various types of torture but they are not getting any remedy from you, the memorandum said adding, in spite of being a vice chancellor of the university, you have failed to equally behave towards all the students like a teacher.
It said, “You are the highest paid and round-the-clock officer of this university. Your salary and allowances are paid from our taxes that go to the state exchequer. Knowing that you are legally responsible to ensure security of our children, we have sent them to the university under your guardianship.”
“We don’t understand why are you are behaving like an official of a partisan government despite being the head of an autonomous institution which gets salary and allowances from the state exchequer. We are astonished, sad and concerned seeing your biased and inhumane role day after day. We think your act has been instigating the criminals to commit crimes more,” the memorandum added.
The concerned guardians and civil society members also said to the vice chancellor, “We want the situation to end and we want to know the reasons for which you and your administration is playing roles unlike a teacher with our children.”
After reading out the memorandum, newsmen asked the DU vice chancellor about the disappearance of CCTV footage records of the DUCSU building, the spot of the attacks. The VC said he has sought a help of the police department in this regard and they are taking care of the matter very seriously.
Dhaka University’s international relations department teacher Tanzimuddin Khan, Jahangirnagar University’s anthropology department teacher Sayeed Ferdous, Ganasanghati Andalan chief coordinator Zonayed Saki spoke at the occasion and asked questions to the VC.
Famous photographer Shahidul Alam and assistant professor of economics department at Dhaka University, Rushad Faridi, were present there.
DU proctor AKM Golam Rabbani, assistant proctor Badruzzaman Bhuiyan, university’s public relations office director Mahmud Alam and a few others were present on behalf of the DU administration.
VC Akhtaruzzaman did not answer when Rakhal Raha asked him why the university administration has not taken initiatives to ensure presence of all the students on the campus irrespective of their party and ideology.
The DU VC was also reluctant first when a person asked him whether any action would be taken against Bangladesh Chhatra League for its aggressive roles in the past. Later he said, “I hope all of us, wherever we are, will behave in a responsible way. Let’s not hold any individual or organisation responsible. Let’s follow rules and values.”