Children of Zafar Iqbal, Yasmeen Haque condemn BCL attack on SUST teachers

The children of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) teachers Muhammed Zafar Iqbal and Yasmeen Haque have ‘strongly condemned’ the attack on their parents’ colleagues.

Popular science fiction writer Zafar Iqbal teaches computer science and engineering at SUST and his wife, Yasmeen, teaches physics.
 
The teachers were peacefully demonstrating in front of the administrative building, demanding the removal of Vice-Chancellor Aminul Haque Bhuyan, when Bangladesh Chhatra League activists swooped down on them on Sunday.
 
They pushed and manhandled the agitating teachers in an effort to break the protest.
 
Yasmeen Haque had fallen down during the scuffle. A BCL activist was seen kicking another teacher in the melee.
 
Yasmeen and Zafar Iqbal’s son, Nabil Iqbal, and daughter, Yeshim Iqbal, took to social media the following day to protest the incident.
 
Both shared the same statement on their Facebook pages to express their ‘outrage at the events that were committed’ against the SUST faculty.
 
Yeshim is a doctoral student in Psychology and Social Intervention Programme at New York University, while her brother, Nabil, works at the University of Amsterdam.
 
In their post, both reminisced about their childhood at SUST campus.
 
“As the children of faculty members, we had the privilege of growing up on the campus of Shahjalal University, and thus for our whole lives we have seen firsthand the love and devotion that the faculty has given to the students, far beyond the standard obligations of providing an education.
 
“We are thus shocked and appalled that certain students would be persuaded to return this love and devotion with the physical assault of an assembly of the faculty,” the post read. 

Zafar Iqbal was seen sitting alone in the university’s roundabout some ten yards away from the site of the scuffle when it started.
 
He had reacted sharply to the incident saying, “If any of those who attacked the teachers are my students, I should hang myself to death.”
 
Nabil and Yeshim wrote on Facebook, “We find it impossible to reconcile our memories of the campus that we grew up on with the idea that university students would attack the professors -- including our mother -- who teach them.
 
“We strongly condemn this attack on SUST faculty.”
 
Many have shared their posts on the social networking site, expressing sympathy and concern. Sunday’s attack on the teachers had also triggered an outpouring of anger on the social media.
 
Gultekin Khan, first wife of Zafar Iqbal’s brother, late writer Humayun Ahmed, wrote, “Dear Nabil & Yeshim, We are with you. You must be worried, deeply concerned which is very normal but they can't get away with the crime.”
 
After the incident, SUST VC Aminul Haque Bhuyan had claimed that the attack was targeted at him. The university authorities on Monday also started an investigation into the ‘attack on the VC’.
 
The university on Tuesday temporarily expelled four students affiliated to the BCL in connection with the assault.
 
The ruling Awami League’s student wing, too, had, a day before, temporarily expelled three leaders of its SUST unit.
 
Meanwhile, protests against the assault on teachers are continuing.
 
Students and teachers of the university have been holding silent processions and human chains in their show of condemnation.
 
Publishers of Zafar Iqbal’s books on Wednesday formed a human-chain at the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka, demanding punishment of the assaulters.