Scholars' records

With of course absolutely no intention to belittle Prof. Yunus's academic records, as published in The Daily Star obituary, and in other newspapers, I would like to point out that the person who stood first in the Matriculation examinations of 1956 was Munibur Rahman Chowdhury, now a Professor of Mathematics at Dhaka University, and he also secured the top position in the I.Sc. examinations. In the following years Nripen Chakrabarty, Sachi Dulal Dhar, Tareq Ali, Ahmed Shafi, Mahbub Hussain Khan and Moin Khan were also able to secure this double honour.

Humayun Azad was also an outstanding studentfrom Matriculation to Masters. It is possible that the main brain behind these attacks may be a person with a mediocre academic records who holds a grudge against truly brilliant people.

Assassination of Prof. Yunus. Who is next? The brutal killing of the professor , a distinguished teacher of Rajshahi University and a progressive-minded academic, saddens us. On November 30, 1995, he survived an attack on the Rajshahi university campus. Unfortunately, this time the perpetrators didn't give him the opportunity to survive. The trend of attack on progressive minded people indicates that one particular politically motivated group is behind all such activities. This group is fundamentalist which opposed the liberation war of Bangladesh. Rajshahi University has virtually become a heaven of the fundamentalist students from 1992-93. Since then they have been moving ahead uninterruptedly except during the regime of the AL government during 1996-2001. No student organisation, not even the student wing of the BNP, can dominate in the halls and on the campus.

The authorities concerned should act without further delay. Otherwise , many more valuable lives will be lost.

Mallik Akram Hossain University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong