Staff Reporter :
The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) on Tuesday demanded resignation of Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Professor Akhtaruzzaman for his comment that the students associated with the quota-reform movement have militancy connection.
The leaders of the organization gave this call in a press conference organised in the Supreme Court Bar Association building. SCBA President Advocate Zainul Abedin read out a written statement in the conference.
Bar Secretary Barrister A M Mahbub Uddin Khokan said, “The VC should resign immediately. He should prove that the students are militant. Now if any student is killed as a militant, then he will have to take the responsibility.”
The SCBA leaders also criticised his stance against the ongoing quota-reform movement.
“Dhaka University’s Vice-Chancellor has ordered a bar on the entry of general people into the university campus after announcing that the students associated with the quota-reform movement have militancy connection which we think is his sheer on-man decision. He (the VC) cannot do so in any manner,” SCBA President Advocate Zainul Abedin said.
The bar President accused the DU VC of pushing his students to the road to extremism. The responsibility of the DU VC is to ensure the security of students of the university. But instead of doing so, he (the VC) is remaining busy to serving the government by making unwanted statements, he said. He said, many students who are associated with the quota reform movement have been attacked and severely injured while many others have been arrested.
The SCBA President demanded formation of a committee with a Supreme Court judge and two former Vice-Chancellors to investigate the incidents of attacks on the quota-reform movement activists, and to arrest and punish the persons responsible for the incidents.
He called upon the government to immediately release the detained students, to provide treatments to the injured students and to arrest and punish the attackers.
Terming the quota-reform movement as a logical movement, Advocate Zainul expressed their solidarity with the movement.
He also urged the government to accept the logical demand and to issue a gazette notification reforming the quota system in civil service.
Meanwhile, SCBA Secretary Barrister A M Mahbub Uddin Khokan demanded resignation of the DU VC.
He said the quota reform movement activists have been attacked, injured and insulted even after the Prime Minister had announced cancellation of the quota system in the government service.
The Prime Minister and the Home Minister are not saying anything about the incidents which are not acceptable, he added.
