A former student of Dhaka University (DU) tore down and ripped up three portraits of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah from the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU) archive on Monday in protest against their display.
The former student, identified as Abu Tayeb Habildar, entered the archive at around 2:30pm, removed the pictures from the wall, pulled them from their frames, and tore them apart, according to eyewitnesses.
While tearing up the photographs, Abu Tayeb strongly criticised Jinnah’s stance against the Bengali language.
Addressing DUCSU leader Sadik Kayem, he questioned whether DUCSU intended to make Urdu the state language, condemning the decision to display the portrait of a leader who had declared that the state language would be Urdu, not Bengali.
Demanding answers from the university administration and DUCSU leaders, Abu Tayeb questioned how Jinnah, who attempted to snatch away the mother tongue of the people, could be featured while omitting the actual heroes of the country’s Language Movement.
He demanded that the archive display portraits of individuals associated with the Language Movement and the Liberation War, specifically calling for the inclusion of Language Movement hero Abul Kashem, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Maulana Abdur Rashid Tarkabagish.
The controversy emerged after the DUCSU archive was reopened on Sunday following renovation work. Although a standalone or prominent portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was absent, three new images of Muhammad Ali Jinnah had been added to the collection.
The three controversial items included a photograph of Jinnah advocating Urdu as Pakistan’s state language during his speech at the then Racecourse Maidan (now Suhrawardy Udyan) on 21 March 1948, a picture from the All-India Muslim League’s annual conference in Lahore in March 1940 showing Jinnah alongside party leaders, and a report clipping from Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper regarding the 1970 election featuring Jinnah’s photograph.
The inclusion of the images sparked widespread discussion and criticism across the campus starting Sunday.
Student organisation Chhatra Dal demanded the immediate removal of Jinnah’s photographs and called for an end to utilising DUCSU to promote the ideology of any specific political group.
Its top leaders further vowed to resist any attempts to distort the historical relics and spirit of Dhaka University, including the historic Madhur Canteen. Meanwhile, Chhatra Union similarly demanded the removal of Jinnah’s portraits and urged the reinstatement of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s portrait.
Responding to Monday’s incident, Fatima Tasnim Juma, the DUCSU Liberation War Affairs Secretary who is in charge of the archive, termed the event an “attack.”
