How unruly was BCL at CU?

It was December 8. The clash was triggered by an altercation in the shuttle train, and left19 people injured.One group belongs to the president and the other to the general secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) at Chittagong University.

To investigate the clash, five vice presidents of BCL central committee arrived on the CU campus on December 10, but the BCL activists defied them too, and clashed with each other right in front of them. The next day, the central committee expelled six senior BCL leaders of the university.

It was the latest in a series of violent incidents at CU. Between September 18 to December 10, the BCL activists were engaged in at least eight incidents of clashes and attacks, forcing the central committee to form two investigation teams.

One team was assigned to investigate the December 8 clash and the other was formed following vandalism and ransacking at the residences of four BCL leaders including deceased BCL leader Diaz Irfan Chowdhury on October 31 over tender disputes.

Three major factions of the CU unit BCL used to clash on the campus – one loyal to president Mohammad Alamgir Tipu, another to general secretary Fazlay Rabbi Sujan, and the other to deceased leader Diaz.

On December 10, supporters of the BCL president beat up the followers of Diaz in front of the BCL vice presidents in Chittagong city when they went to the superintendent of police of Chittagong to investigate the December 8 clash.

Regarding repeated clashes on the campus, Sujan said they could not control their activists.

He said the junior BCL men did not obey his command. He said this to journalists while he was requested to take steps against one of his followers who physically assaulted three journalists on the campus a few days back.

Seeking anonymity, a vice president of CU BCL said, “Of the eight clashes and attacks, five occurred before the death of Diaz over a Tk 95 crore project for construction of two CU buildings.”

On November 20, Diaz, a central assistant secretary of BCL and former joint secretary of CU unit BCL, was found dead in his rented house in the university's No-2 Gate area.

Since his death, friends and family of Diaz have been claiming that Diaz was murdered over “tender-related disputes”, and the family lodged a murder case against 20 people including CU BCL president Tipu and Assistant Proctor Anwar Hossain.

On December 5, followers of Sujan locked the office of the arts and humanities faculty's dean for two hours as their favoured candidate could not get admitted to the university, according to BCL insiders.

On December 9, a follower of Tipu was beaten by Sujan's group, resulting in chases between the two groups.Later police raided two halls and detained 30 BCL men for interrogation. On the same day, supporters of Diaz beat up Imtiaz Ovi, an organising secretary of CU unit BCL, who is loyal to Tipu, with sticks and iron rods on the campus.

Earlier, when contacted, Sujan said he was working to unite CU unit BCL and remove factionalisaiton. Tipu could not be contacted over the phone despite repeated attempts.