Shibir calls strike at SUST

Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) unit of the Islami Chhatra Shibir, student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, has called daylong shutdown in the four districts under the Sylhet division on March 20 and 21.

Admission tests to the fist year honours courses for the 2013-14 session of the university would be held on the same day.

Shibir said in a release that it had called the strike in protest against the expulsion of SUST unit President Ehsanul Karim and 13 other Shibir leaders and activists from the university.

In February, SUST authorities permanently expelled 14 Shibir activists for vandalising the Chetana 71 sculpture and attacking a human chain formed by teachers and students protesting the vandalism.

SUST Shibir General Secretary Saiful Islam Sujon said in the statement they would also hold a demonstration on the campus on March 12 and 13 demanding the withdrawal of the expulsion order.

He said that they would enforce an indefinite strike on the campus from March 18 if the authorities stuck to their decision.

Shibir men damaged the nameplate of the Chetana ’71 sculpture, which was built commemorating Bangladesh’s Liberation War, on December 12, hours after the execution of Abdul Quader Molla, a convicted war criminal.

Molla had been handed down the death sentence by the Supreme Court for crimes against humanity, genocide and rape committed during Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in 1971.

On the next afternoon, Shibir activists attacked a human chain formed by the university teachers and students protesting harm to the sculpture.

They also set fire two motorbikes, one belonging to a university professor and exploded two crude bombs.

Later, the authorities, on February 27, permanently expelled the 14 Shibir activists for their involvement in vandalism and attack on the human chain.