Academic activities disrupted at Jagannath University over student strike

Jagannath University students continued their movement for residential halls for a second day on Sunday bringing academic activities to a standstill.

No classes and exams were held in the wake of student agitation,  demanding to allot land for their residential hall at the abandoned jail premises in Old Dhaka.

They locked up all the buildings inside the campus at 8am and took out a procession amid heavy rain.

Students claimed that Proctor Nur Mohammad had tried to resume academic activities, an allegation he denied.

“I did not try break the locks, rather I went there to ask the students to let the teachers and staff in,” he told the bdnews24.com.

Nur said that they have forwarded the students’ demand to the higher authorities and called upon students to join classes and examinations.

JnU students have been continuing their movement since Aug 2 demanding construction of a new residential hall at the spot where the Dhaka Central Jail was previously situated on Najim Uddin Road in Old Dhaka.

On Wednesday, they held a sit-in protest in front of the National Press Club calling for the strike and threatened to intensify the movement by submitting a memorandum to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, if the demand  were not met within the day.

Boycotting classes and examinations, they locked up the main entrance of the university the next day and took position at the Bahadur Shah Park area halting vehicular movement and creating huge traffic congestion amid rain in Old Dhaka.

Local influential people have been occupying the nine residential halls of the then Jagannath College for the last three decades.

Students once lived in the houses abandoned by Hindus, but could not take control due to legal complications.

According to media reports in the 1980s, the students had lived in the houses until 1985.

The home ministry closed six halls after the students of Shaheed Abdur Rahman Hall clashed with locals in Armanitola on Feb 8 that year.

The hall is now under police control.

MP Haji Mohammad Salim allegedly captured the Tibet Hall at GL Partho Lane and set up a market by demolishing it.

The students clashed with locals in a failed attempt to recover the land in 1990s.

Several persons, including a teacher, were shot by police during another demonstration in 2014.

The Shaheed Anwar Shafique Hall at Mahuttuli in Armanitola has also been taken razed to the ground. The 40-katha land is being used as a warehouse. (1 katha = 1.65 decimals)

Saidur Rahman Hall and Rauf Majumder Hall have been turned into hardware shops.

Police had taken control of Shaheed Ajmal Hossain Hall and Shaheed Shahabuddin Hall.

Now local influential people are using these buildings.

Thousands of students tried to recover the halls in 2014 but police and locals thwarted them.

University Registrar Ohiduzzaman said an agency was supposed to make a report on Ajmal Hall, but it has not been submitted.

The city corporation is running Shaheed Ziaur Rahman High School at Bajlur Rahman Hall in Malitola.

Apart from these nine halls, powerful people have grabbed the building for third and fourth-class employees of the university and set up a market in Patuatuli.

The first serious demonstration to recover the grabbed halls was held on Jan 27, 2009.

The university was closed indefinitely following clashes between students and police.

The students have since been demonstrating every year for new halls.

An investigation committee was formed in February 2009 to find ways to recover the halls on the education ministry’s orders.

The committee recommended leasing Anwar Shafique Hall, Shahabuddin Hall, Ajmal Hall, Tibet Hall and Habibur Rahman Hall to the university in March that year.

The university applied for the halls to the land ministry which ordered the deputy commissioner of Dhaka in July to take steps in keeping with the Vested Property Act.

The following year, the DC recommended acquisition  of the halls instead of lease by the university due to legal complexities.

But there has been no progress in recovering the halls.

Dr Habibur Rahman Hall in Bangshal and Nazrul Islam Hall at Gopimohan Bosak Lane were handed over to the university in 2011 and 2014, but the authorities are yet to start renovating them.