Staff Reporter :
At least 23 private universities and English medium schools are under the surveillance of intelligence agencies to root out militancy from the country.
Of the institutions, 14 are private universities, including North South University (NSU) and nine English medium schools, Education Ministry sources said.
Meanwhile, the authorities of all educational institutions have been asked to cooperate with the Ministry as well as the intelligence agencies in this regard, they said.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid told the media on Thursday that it was proved that some teachers of NSU were involved in militant activities. One of the teachers was directly involved in the recent Gulshan terror attack, he said.
The Minister also warned that the Ministry would take stern action if any institutions try to hide any information related to militancy.
He said that the Ministry had earlier asked the institutions to provide information about militancy but they did not comply with the Ministry’s request. The Minister came up with these remarks after a team of University Grant Commission (UGC) visited the NSU campus led by Professor Dil Afroz Begum.
In view of the widespread allegations about involvement of some students in militancy, a team of University Grants Commission (UGC) on Thursday visited the North South University and asked the administration to check terrorist activities on the campus. The UGC officials also discussed overall situation with the high-ups of the university, official sources said. The NSU is facing flak after several of its students were found involved in terrorism in the recent terror attacks in Gulshan and Sholakia. “The UGC team went there as part of an ongoing investigation,” Omar Faruk, Deputy Director (Public Relations) of the UGC told The New Nation on Thursday.
On the other hand, Public Relations Officer of the NSU Belal Hossain said, the officials of the UGC came to the campus as per their routine work. They discussed many topics, including the militancy issue, in an informal meeting.
“The UGC monitors the activities of the private universities. The visit of the UGC officials was not special. It was their routine visit. It had no relations with the recent terror attack in Gulshan,” he claimed.
An official of the UGC wishing anonymity, however, said that it was not special drive in NSU but “it has importance”.
“We have warned the NSU authorities that the UGC would take stern action against them if they fail to root out the militancy from the campus,” he said. Earlier on August 19 last year, the UGC officials had visited the university following allegations of militant activities and financial irregularities. The authorities failed to give a satisfactory explanation when asked why Jihadi books had been kept in the library.
The UGC team had sent a report to the Ministry of Education but it did not receive any ‘feedback’.
Sources inside the Ministry said that the report had been acknowledged and the NSU was sent a show-cause letter with a deadline, which expired six months ago.
The university came under scrutiny after the killing of blogger and Ganajagaran Mancha activist Rajib Haider in 2013. The young men arrested for hacking him to death were all students of the Electronics and Electrical Engineering (EEE) at the university.
They are Sadman Yasir Mamun, Faisal Bin Nayeem Dwip, Ehsan Reza Rumman, Maksudul Hasan Anik, Nayeem Irad and Nafiz Imtiaz. Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, who tried to blow up the New York Federal Reserve Bank in 2012, was also a student of North South University before he migrated to the United States.
The deadly terror attack which took place at the Gulshan cafe on July 1, involved one student, Nibras Islam, who disappeared for months before storming the Holey Artisan Bakery where, he and the other gunmen killed 20, mostly foreign hostages.
The largest prayer congregation at Kishoreganj’s Sholakia Eidgah also came under attack on Eid day.
Two police constables died after being hacked and bombed by the attackers, one of them was a North South University student Abir Rahman. He died when police began shooting. His family said he was missing for four months.
Hasanat Reza Karim, a former teacher at the university, was among the hostages freed by the cafe gunmen. Police said he was one of the suspects but now denies having him in custody.
Law enforcers have a list of ten students who were reported missing by their families, since most of the cafe attackers were missing for months.
Among them, Junnun Shikder and Basharuzzaman were North South University students.
