BCL running amok in DU

On March 14, a faction of Bangladesh Chattra League (BCL) took it upon itself to try and force residents at Dhaka University's Bijoy Ekattor Hall to make room for their cadres. When teachers and the hall provost arrived at the Hall upon receipt of complaints these BCL men had the audacity to argue with the teachers. What circumstances have led the ruling party student wing to behave in such an unruly manner where they show little regard for their peers, we wonder? In the past, at the height of student agitation in the '60s, no student organisation had ever displayed such criminality. Why such a mindset has been created where violence and force has become a mode of arbitration and indeed, the mainstay of the ruling party's student wing.

Awami League (AL) has been in power for the last eight years and the unruly behaviour of BCL has been taken to a new height. So precisely what is the ruling party's view of the situation and what is it going to do about it? BCL is intimidating the university administration through force and coercion as if it is its god-given right to decide who will get seats in the dormitories. We wonder why the university administration remains strangely silent when acts of hooliganism keep recurring on the campus and we are sorry to see the rather inert reaction of the university authorities to curb such hooliganism.

We appeal to the ruling party to put a stop to BCL's unruly behaviour, which ultimately undermines the government's image. Otherwise the good academic environment that one expects to see in the nation's premier public university will be difficult to achieve.