Staff Reporter :
Quota reform activists held demonstration in the Dhaka University campus
yesterday after a brief respite. Over 400 students brought out a procession from the central library at around 11 am calling for release of their fellow students from jail and gazette notification for quota reform as promised by the Prime Minister, they said.
Bangladesh Sadharan Chhatra Odhikar Sangrakkhan Parishad, a platform spearheading the movement for quota reform in the government job came up with three-point demand yesterday including immediate release arrested students, punishment of the attackers on teachers and students on campuses in different educational institutions and gazette notification for quota reform.
They protested the killing of two students of Ramizuddin Cantonment College with
black clothes tied to their heads and held one-minute silence for the fallen students. Students than paraded through the campus and held a rally at Central Shaheed Minar. Later they disperse at Raju monument near TSC. They raised various slogans against arrest, harassment and discrimination and demanded a stop to attacks on them by ruling party activists. .
Nurul Haque Nur, a joint convener of the platform, who was injured in an attack allegedly carried out by the activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League at DU on June 30, said they will continue their peaceful demonstrations until their demands were met. “We will continue our peaceful demonstrations until the gazette notification on
quota reform is published,” he said. The students however, said students will not boycott classes and exams while continuing peaceful movement. He also did not announce any new agitation programme.
“We called off our agitation following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s pledge on abolition of the quota system, but since then there has been no progress in this regard, rather we have come under frequent attack by BCL cadres,” Nur said. “If there are any more such attacks, we will paralyze the country,” he threatened. He complaints that the government is wasting time in the name of gazette notification. At first it said the committee for quota review will ned 15 days and then it was extended to 90 days to “review, reform or cancel” the quota system. Nur said this is nothing but prolonging the issue as the tenure of the present government will be ended by then. The government will not be able to pass any legislation in this regard.
