Students lock DU buildings

Students of different departments of Dhaka University have locked all the academic buildings of the campus demanding the authority to scrap the decision of affiliating seven colleges of the capital under the institution.

The protesting students locked the academic buildings at around 8 am on Sunday.

“We are trying to discuss with the students to resolve the problem,” said professor Golam Rabbani, the proctor of DU.

Key dates of the protest 

Seven government college got affiliated with Dhaka University (DU) on February 16, 2017. 

After being affiliated with DU, students of those colleges started to took the streets pressing home their various demands including publishing year-end exam results, publishing flawless results of all departmental examinations etc. from 2017 to date. 

In July 2017, Siddiqur Rahman, student of Government Titumir College, lost his eyes during a clash with police while staging a peaceful demonstration at Shahbagh intersection.  After that protesting students went back to classes on assurance from the DU authorities. However, Shahbagh Police filed a case for attempted murder against 1,200 unknown persons over a clash with protesting students.

Protesters again blocked the New Market-Nilkhet intersection in October, demanding the withdrawal of the case against 1,200 students of the seven colleges.    

In September 2017, students again went on a day-long hunger strike, demanding the publication of the results from their honours final year examination. On the same day, students of 7 DU affiliated ended hunger strike on assurance from the university administration.  

In January 2018, students blocked Nilkhet Intersection demanding the publication of results of the second-year final examination held in January 2017 to be published by this month. 

In 2019, students blocked the streets again on April and July to press home their demands including promotion of students who failed their honours first year final examination. 

The affiliated colleges are Dhaka College, Eden Mohila College, Government Shaheed Suhrawardy College, Kabi Nazrul Government College, Begum Badrunnesa Government. 

The colleges re-affiliated with the university as per a directive of the education ministry after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had earlier declared that all such old colleges would come under public university systems to enhance their quality of education. 

As per the decision, all activities of theses colleges, including, admission process, holding of examinations and developing syllabuses should be conducted by DU.

There are about 1,67,236 students and 1,149 teachers in these colleges under their bachelors’ and masters’ courses.