M M Jasim :
The government has taken initiative to prepare a list of missing students with the help of intelligence agencies, authorities of educational institutions and guardians. .
According to the report of a high-profile intelligence agency, the militant groups have targeted the brilliant students, who come from well-to-do families and motivated easily.
Some teachers, the officials and even some owners of these universities are directly involved in this process, the report also said, adding that the negligence of field-level officials in performing their duties is also responsible for rise of the militant activities.
The field-level officials are busy for building own fortune, for favourable posting and senior’s mercy . They did not care about the militant activities, the report also said.
Director of Intelligence Wing of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Lieutenant Colonel Abul Kalam Azad said, the RAB has taken initiative to investigate the activities related to militancy in all the private universities and English medium schools.
Meanwhile, the report also found that some private university campuses and English medium schools across the country have become the dens of militancy and its training centers.
A special team of investigators has found about one hundred students of several private universities missing for a long time and suspect that they have been involved in militant activities.
It also has found that the militant groups run their activities safely in some city’s private varsities and English medium schools. Of them, the North South University (NSU) has widely been blamed in this connection.
In this regard, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said, the government is ‘alert’ about the situation in the NSU, a reputed private university some of whose students have got training in terrorist activities. “Such allegations against NSU teachers and students had been made earlier. We are aware of this university. We also held meetings with them earlier,” the Minister said.
On the other hand, the University Grants Commission (UGC) investigators has found the banned militant outfit Hizb-ut Tahrir’s printed materials in the NSU library last year. Several teachers and students of the university were sacked and rusticated for having alleged militant ties.
Seven of the eight persons convicted for the February 2013 murder of blogger and Ganajagaran Mancha activist Ahmed Rajib Haider were also NSU students.
Vice-Chancellor of NSU Professor Atiqul Islam said his institution was not the only place grooming militancy.
“A student spends maximum nine to twelve hours on the campus per week. They spend rest of their times at different places. There are Internet and electronic media, which could motivate them to adopt this way,” the NSU VC said.
The government has taken the initiative to find out the involvement of private universities’ students in militancy after the terrorist attack of Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan.
In the latest incident, one of the terrorists who killed two policemen in an attack on a check-post near Sholakia Eidgah ground on July 7 morning, before being shot dead by police, was a student of North South University (NSU).
Two of the five attackers who killed 22 people at an upscale cafe in Dhaka’s Gulshan-2 on July 1 night before being shot dead by army commandos the next morning, were students of NSU and BRAC Universities.
