Polytechnic students clear Sat Rasta, announce ‘effigy-burning’ protest

Protesters say they will paste the three-point demands by BSc engineering students to scarecrows and torch them on polytechnic campuses nationwide

Polytechnic institute and diploma engineering students have ended their blockade of the Sat Rasta area in Dhaka’s Tejgaon, clearing the major thoroughfare.

Jobair Patwary, a student of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute and representative of the protesters, said they cleared the road around 2:30pm on Wednesday at the request of police.

However, he announced that the students would conduct a “effigy-burning” demonstration at all private and public polytechnic institutes on Thursday to continue to press for their four-point list of demands.

“We will paste the three-point demands by BSc engineering students to the scarecrows and set them on fire,” said Sabbir Ahmed, office secretary of Karigori Chhatra Andolon, which is spearheading the movement.

The protesters had taken to the streets on Wednesday morning, bringing traffic to a standstill in the Tejgaon area.

Similar demonstrations also took place in Rajshahi and Dinajpur.

Their four demands are:

• The maximum punishment must be ensured for those in the Engineers’ Rights Movement who publicly shot and threatened to slaughter diploma engineers.

• All activities conducted in support of the “unreasonable” three-point demands of BSc Engineering students must be halted immediately by the state

• The outline and recommendations of the reasonable six-point demands raised by the Technical Students' Movement, Bangladesh must be fully implemented.

• A one-channel system must be introduced for engineering education