BU shut for indefinite period after student agitation

Authorities of Barishal University on Thursday announced its closure for indefinite period in the face of students’ agitation over five-point charter of demands and allegation of ignoring students in Independence Day programmes.
The university registrar Hasanur Rahman in a notice announced the closure and asked all the resident students to leave halls of residence by 5:00pm Thursday. 
The notice said the vice-chancellor closed the university for indefinite period as per authority vested in him in section11 (10) of Barishal University Act 2013 to ensure safety and security of teachers, officials, employees and students of the university and maintain law and order on the campus following the unexpected situation created over observance of Independence Day. 
Immediate after the announcement, agitating students went out on demonstration against the decision. 
The students at a news conference in the evening declared vice-chancellor SM Imamul Haque persona-non-grata on the campus and demanded his immediate resignation.
Though the authorities had asked students to leave halls of residence by 5:00pm, most of the students ignored the order and staying at the halls of residence. Few female students left the halls complying with the authority’s order, campus sources said.
Vice-chancellor Imamul Haque, who is in Dhaka on Thursday, told New Age over phone the university was closed down to bring back normalcy and avoid unwanted incidents. 
The students on Wednesday began boycotting classes and examinations to press home their five-point charter of demands and protesting at the university vice-chancellor’s branding them as offspring of razakar.
The students’ demands included immediately holding elections to the university’s students’ union, issuing identity cards for the students, allowing them to sit for examinations without fine if they skip examinations, increasing the number of buses, constructing a footbridge over the highway in front of the campus and an apology from the vice-chancellor for branding students as offspring of razakar.
The students alleged that the vice-chancellor arranged Independence Day programmes on the campus without inviting any student. As the students protested at the act, he branded the students as offspring of razakar on Tuesday, said the students.
Vice-chancellor M Imamul Huq, however, rejected the allegations and said the students became agitated after a lunch was arranged only for distinguished guests from different spheres of the society. 
The university authorities had arranged improved diets at its hostels and canteens and the students were also invited to other programmes arranged by university marking Independence Day, he said.
The vice-chancellor also denied branding all the students as offspring of razakar.
Imamul said a vested quarter was trying to create instability on the university campus to bar renewal of his tenure as vice-chancellor as his current term will be served out in two months.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net