VC Akhtaruzzaman turns to police to retrieve DUCSU attacks tape

Vice-Chancellor Md Akhtaruzzaman has sought police help to recover the DUCSU Bhaban security camera footage, missing since the attacks on VP Nurul Haque Nur and his supporters.

A group of people under the banner of “Anxious Guardians and Citizens’ Society” asked the VC about the footage during a meeting at his office on Tuesday.

Activists of the Muktijuddho Mancha and Bangladesh Chhatra League attacked Nur and dozens of his followers in and outside the building on Sunday, injuring at least 28 people, including the DUCSU vice-president.

The attackers took away the hard drive of the CCTV cameras while leaving the building, eyewitnesses said.

When the guardians and citizens asked why the authorities were not releasing the security camera footage, VC Akhtaruzzaman said he had turned to police for the footage.

In a memorandum, they also asked -

- why he was behaving like a ruling party official even after being paid from the national exchequer as the head of an autonomous organisation.

- why he was increasingly working against the students.

- why he was not behaving like a teacher with their children.

- why he could not ensure a democratic atmosphere on the campus where all the students must have freedom of expression.

- why the university administration is not taking any step after the attacks.

Writer and education movement activist Rakhal Raha read out the memorandum.

“We, the parents and guardians of some students currently studying in the Dhaka University, former students, writers, artists, journalists, lawyers, that is the taxpayers, have anxiously been noticing for some days that the students are being subjected to violence and torture,” the memorandum said.

“But they do not get any solution from you. We are shocked, saddened and anxious by your partisan, inhumane behaviour, which, we think, is continuously encouraging the criminals to break the law.”

The memorandum said the “unprecedented” attacks on Nur and his followers were “so brutal” that at least two students were still undergoing treatment at the Intensive Care Unit.

“The attacked students were threatened with expulsion when they sought your administration’s help. Such incidents had occurred before but we never saw that you ensured justice after properly investigating any of these.”

Photographer Shahidul Alam, lawyer Hasnat Qayyum, Dhaka University teachers Tanzimuddin Khan and Rushad Faridi, Jahangirnagar University teacher Sayeed Ferdous, and Ganasanghati Andolan Chief Coordinator Zonayed Saki were also in the delegation.

VC Akhtaruzzaman termed the attacks “unwarranted” and said the attackers would be brought to justice.

He also told the delegation their message would help him run the university.