Protesting students of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) on Wednesday demanded a complete ban on organisation-based politics on the campus within the next seven days. The general students of BUET who have been protesting on the campus since the brutal murder of their fellow Abrar Fahad gave the authorities an ultimatum until October 15 to ensure the ban.
They placed a fresh 10-point demand yesterday following a silent procession on the campus, which also included capital punishment to the killers, expulsion of all the accused from the university. Students also demanded an end to all sorts of ragging in the residential halls. They wanted a common website/platform/forum which will have all such incidents that have previously occurred and will contain details of the legal progress.
Tales of BCL leaders who harass and torture many general students in the name of ragging are quite common in all the public universities where the Vice-Chancellors are appointed for their pro-government politics. So the leaders of the Student League backed by the government had no difficulty in continuing with their torture tactics on students who are not openly supporters of the government. Please be honest. To arrest those responsible for the murder of Abrar, a brilliant student of BUET, on suspicion that he was an opponent of the government means nothing about punishment by court. They have been arrested for their own safety and those who have been arrested looked relaxed and not worried. So we find it heartless to demand simplistically punishment for the murderers.
It has been revealed that BUET torture cell was run by the members of Student League on daily basis. It is also being exposed that such torture cells exist in every public university and the Vice-Chancellors being politicised in favour of the government play no role to stop terrorism against students. Such politicised Vice-Chancellors must be removed immediately to restore safe academic atmosphere.
It is now known that police who came to the Sher-e-Bangla hall where they heard about the torture were not allowed to investigate the matter. So it is easy for anyone to guess the source of the power of the student leaders. Without government blessings it would not have possible to order the police to do nothing.
We do not have real politics but terrorism to remain in power. It is a mistake to call terrorism as politics. Every sensible person can understand that the politics of state terrorism is destroying not only democracy and the rule of law but also our higher education. Such idea is not ours but imported from our enemies.
It is unfortunate political leaders do not want to understand the harm being done by politicisation of students, teachers, lawyers and even journalists for the politics of state terrorism. We are killing democracy and the rule of law. Election politics is over. Our bright students in higher education are targets to be butchered.
We do not have politics what we have is politicisation for state terrorism to spread terrorism and destroy our dream of democratic state and safe life. The politicisation is nothing but state terrorism against our own good. Those who are in power feel very secure that terrorism is helpful to them keeping the whole nation living in fear. They do not care, in the absence of mature political leadership and due to existence of sycophancy, the country is facing long-term irreparable damage. The scenes of violence and murder on campus cannot be accepted by saying that such killing, may not so brutal, took place under other government also.
What we have been trying to say at the cost of huge risk that Bangladesh is under a vicious conspiracy since its inception against our independence, safety and wellbeing. But the power happy politicians have had no time to see this. Politicisation is not politics but the process of state terrorism.
We have to think of ending politicisation as a process of state terrorism if we really want to make life safe for our students at public universities.
The educated sycophants who for selfish reasons encouraged this process of state terrorism and corruption of the government cannot deny the crime they have committed against the nation and the country.
