BUET students blocked on way to Jamuna in protest over ‘assault’ on classmate

Police stop them outside the Intercontinental Hotel, where they staged a midnight protest

A group of students from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) have staged a midnight protest in front of Dhaka’s Intercontinental Hotel after one of their classmates was allegedly assaulted and threatened with death by diploma engineers.

Around 1:45am on Tuesday, the students attempted to march towards the chief advisor’s official residence, Jamuna, via Shahbagh intersection.

Police intercepted them at Sakura intersection near the hotel, where they began shouting slogans such as: “We are aflame, our blood is on fire”, and “Injustice will be swept away in a flood of blood”.

A civil engineering student, who asked not to be named, told bdnews24.com technicians from the diploma side held Rokon, a student of Electrical and Electronic Engineering batch 2017 identified with a single name, hostage at the sub-assistant engineer office and threatened to slaughter him.

“We are protesting that. Why was he threatened with being slaughtered just for calling them technicians? We demand an immediate solution.”

Another student said, “Those who attacked Rokon and threatened to kill him must face legal action within 12 hours.”

Asked about the situation, Ramna Police Station chief Golam Faruk told bdnews24.com: “We are trying to find out the exact reason for their protest. I don’t have the details yet.”

Earlier, BUET students had announced a boycott of all classes and exams from Aug 24–26, pressing a three-point demand including a bar on appointing anyone without at least a BSc degree to ninth-grade engineering posts.