In protest, in high spirits

Full of high spirits, the students of Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) at Chittagong University will carry on with their Pahela Baishakh festivities today, putting the wall painting smearing incident behind them.

They were found making last minute touch-ups on Wednesday on colourful masks and structures they prepared for yesterday's Barsho Biday procession and today's Mangal Shobhajatra.

A large colourful procession -- participated by hundreds of students, teachers and people from all walks of life, wearing black badges and carrying a banner stating “Jongi Nirmuler Chetonay Baishakh” -- was brought out yesterday afternoon in the city to bid Bangla year 1423 farewell as well as to protest defacing of the wall painting.

Around or past Tuesday midnight, a portion of a wall painting created by the IFA students was smeared by unidentified miscreants. The students of the institute, nearly 22 kilometres away from the main campus of CU, created the 70-foot-long painting as part of Pahela Baishakh festivities on the campus.

As an act of protest, the IFA authorities decided to leave the defaced wall as is while students near the site hung a banner that reads: “Ekhono Gelona Andhar/ Ekhono Rohilo Badha/ Aar Rekhona Andhare/ Aamay Dekhte Daao.”

The smeared portion of the wall art will be left intact so the people can see exactly what had happened here, said Shaila Sharmin, director of IFA.

Sajib Sen, a master's student and one of the conveners of the Pahela Baishakh Celebration Committee of IFA, said the students worked hard over the last 15 days for this programme and they were focused on completing their task.

On Wednesday afternoon, a local named Ishtiaq stopped near a portion of the wall painting, on which female students were working on, and threatened to shut down the IFA unless they stopped their work, Sajib alleged.

The same person had made similar threats last year against the institute, said IFA director Sharmin, adding that the incident this year has been reported to the CU authorities. 

Contacted, Nurul Huda, officer-in-charge of Chawkbazar Police Station, said although no case was filed following the incident, police were investigating it and examining CCTV video footages from surrounding areas.