Students end 8-hour siege of CU administrative building

They were enraged by a Liberation War remark by the pro-VC, proctor says

The protesters at Chittagong University have suspended their sit-in programme after keeping the university’s administrative building under lock and key for eight hours protesting the remarks of their pro-vice chancellor.

Abdullah Al Noman, general secretary of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, said the protesters unlocked the entrance to the administrative building at 10pm on Monday.

“The sit-in has been suspended. The movement, however, will go on,” he said.

He reiterated the demand of an apology from the pro-VC Mohammed Shamim Uddin Khan and his immediate resignation.

CU Proctor Prof Hossain Shaid Shohrowardhy said the students are unhappy with a comment made by Shamim on the occasion of the Martyred Intellectual Day.

The students withdrew their protest for the Victory Day celebration [on Wednesday], he added.

The withdrawal of the protest brought an end to the face-off between Islami Chhatra Shibir on one side and Chhatra Dal along with leftist student groups on the other.

Protesting the pro-vice chancellor’s remark on the Martyred Intellectual Day, made on Dec 14, the Chhatra and leftist student groups, gathered under the banner of “All-Party Student Unity”, locked the administrative building earlier in the day.

Shamim had called the narrative of the Pakistani Army killing intellectuals in Bangladesh on the eve of its independence in 1971 “absurd” at a discussion marking the Martyred Intellectual Day.

Shamim made his remarks during a discussion organised by the university authorities on Sunday.

“At a time when Pakistani soldiers were trying to flee our country, the idea that members of the Pakistani forces would kill Bangladesh’s intellectuals seems utterly absurd to me. Because at that time, they were in fear for their own lives,” he said.

The remark sparked instant protests on the campus.