A report published in this paper on Friday said a resident student of Dhaka University’s Surya Sen Hall has been tortured allegedly by Sifat Ullah — an activist of the ruling party’s student wing for not attending a political programme of the organisation and tortured him on Monday last. The victim – a second year student of French Language and Culture was called by Sifat to his room and asked why he was absent from the programme. The victim said he was busy with his
departmental exam that day. But the activist was unmoved and tortured him mentally and physically. He was terribly traumatised. It is alleged that general students of the dormitories are routinely required to attend such programmes to make them successful; refusal only brings torture and even expulsion. A three-member probe committee has been formed to investigate the incident.
We are appalled that such torture of students and teachers by student leaders is frequently taking place in university halls and other educational institutions. They are protected by party leaders in an anarchic political environment. Only recently a teacher of Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) was mentally and physically tortured by members of the student organisation in his office room and he died in hours. In another terrible case, a student of BUET was brutally killed in 2019 on false suspicion that he belonged to Shibir politics. In a rare case, a trial court has ordered 20 accused to be hanged. In our view the administration must prevent the creation of such dangerous situations in the education arena.
In almost all cases cadres accused of such torture and killing go unpunished. This has created the culture of impunity in educational institutions throughout the country. Local administration and university authorities keep silent and refrain from taking action fearing reprisal. The accused Surya Sen Hall student has already a long trail of bullying. He reportedly tortured two more students of the hall to force them out of the dormitory. He was suspended for six months for torturing two third-year students of Economics department in 2018.
In most government universities the academic atmosphere is shady. The teachers and the management must try hard save the atmosphere. Student leaders of the government party are responsible for using university premises for torture and extortion. They also feel free to ignore university discipline. Education is in a sorry state in almost all the government universities. We know this government does not think education is important for their mega projects with foreign experts and foreign labour.
The university teachers cannot be happy with salaries without caring for education.
