Some members of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) on Sunday afternoon once again attacked several leaders of quota reform movement at Suhrawardy Udyan and Elephant Road in the capital.
The latest instance of quota reformists getting assaulted by BCL came a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s warning the AL-backed BCL leaders and activists against ‘doing access’.
Around 350 students of Bangladesh General Students’ Rights Protection Council, a platform of quota reform movement held a rally in front of the Raju Sculpture on Dhaka University (DU) campus around 3 pm.
The joint conveners of the platform announced to hold protest rally at all educational institutes across the country on Wednesday protesting the BCL attacks and arrest of quota reformists.
Once the programme was over at around 5 pm, some BCL men allegedly followed quota movement’s joint convener Boni Yeamin at Suhrawardy Udyan and beat him up, witnesses said.
Meanwhile, three joint conveners of the council – Ratul Sarkar, Sohrab Hossain, Mozammel Niazi, were also attacked simultaneously at Elephant Road.
The trio was in a CNG auto-rickshaw returning home while some BCL men riding on four or five motor-cycles halted them and dragged them out of the vehicle and started beating them severely.
One of the victims, Ratul managed to flee from the spot and later posted a Facebook live on his social media account and disclosed the details of the attack. In April, students of public and private universities across the country waged a strong movement demanding reforms in the quota system in public service recruitment process. In the face of the movement, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced in parliament on April 11 the abolition of all types of quotas in public jobs.
As no gazette notification has so far been issued regarding the abolishment of the quota system as per the PM’s declaration, the leaders and activists of Bangladesh General Students’ Rights Protection Council, a platform that leads the quota reform movement, resumed their protests at different public universities and they repeatedly came under attacks allegedly by BCL men.
Amid the movement, the Prime Minister on July 12 in parliament said that it is not possible to change freedom fighters’ quota in public jobs due to a High Court verdict.
