By Mirza Mosaraf Hossain, TwoCircles.net
Following protests of students at Aliah University during which students detained faculty and administrative staff for 18 hours, the Vice Chancellor of Aliah University on yesterday temporarily suspended six students for their actions.
This suspension was undertaken after another protest and stay-in-strike by the University teachers demanding immediate action against their detention and harassment. The University Authority said it would punish the suspended students in accordance with the university’s rules and regulation after the submission of the report by Enquiry Committee.
Yesterday, more than 100 teachers of the University from its three Campuses gathered in the main campus at NewTown and demonstrated a stay-in-strike in front of the Registrar’s office. It was against the harassment of more than 25 Department heads by the students and against the un-student-like behavior of the protesting students who besieged them Thursday whole night. They rallied with posters in hand with the caption, ‘Restore Our Dignity, “Restore the Honour of Teachers”. At the end, one of the university teachers submitted a written to the Registrar seeking immediate action against the students and conditioned classes would be suspended until they are punished.
The University Authority suspended six main students who led the protest and the detention after checking video footage of their involvement in instigating other students. Among the six suspended students, three are from Computer Science and Engineering Department, namely Kazi Minhazul Islam, Afjal Hossain, Sheikh Tajuddin; two– Khelafat Hossain and Sabir Ali Mollah, from Electronics and Communication Engineering Department and Rakesh Sarkar from Civil Engineering Department.
The university teachers are of the opinion that their protest was actually an exhibition of their long stand cumulative anguishes against the insults and harassments committed by those students over trivial issues on several times. Facing the same humiliation, all the teachers of the university’s two organizations, namely the politically backed West Bengal College & University Professors’ Association (WBCUPA) and the non-political Aliah University Teachers’ Association (AUTA), came together and sat for terminating the students’ misbehaviors. TwoCircles.Net also covered some reports on the protests and effigy burning of the former V.C for his resignation over the charges of corruption, mismanagement, over hostel facilitation.
Dr. Maseehur Rahaman, the Head of the Department of Arabic and the President of AUTA, spoke to TwoCircles.Net and said, “the teacher-student relationship very deplorable in the university campuses for a long time. Students behave aggressively and follow malpractices during the exam times. Now, it’s high time these things are stopped. So, we have demonstrated in a dharna before the Registrar’s office and submitted a written seeking immediate action against the culpable students.”
While speaking to the suspension of the six protesting students, the VC of the University, Dr. Nurshad Ali, said, “We have been observing for the last three months that these suspended students are diluting the atmosphere of the university and instigating other students. So, they are temporarily suspended after watching them instigate other students present with them on CCTV footage.”