Students at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) have strongly rejected an administrative order to vacate residential halls, issuing a six-point demand and threatening intensified protests if their demands are not addressed immediately.
The students began demonstrating early Monday morning, staging processions from multiple dormitories and converging at the university’s KR Market area around 9:10am. Chanting slogans, they denounced the university’s directive to leave their halls following a recent outbreak of violence on campus.
By mid-morning, several female and first-year students were seen leaving the dormitories, though many chose to remain in defiance of the order. At around 11:30am, protesters held a press conference at the Amtala area, where they formally announced their six-point charter of demands.
The students’ six demands include – immediate withdrawal of the dormitory evacuation order; uninterrupted dormitory services, including food and utilities; resignation of the Proctorial Body within 24 hours, citing failure to ensure student safety and alleged complicity in allowing external attackers onto campus; public apology from the Vice-Chancellor for recent incidents including the assault on students, crude bomb explosion, library vandalism, and harassment of female students; exemplary punishment for teachers allegedly involved in orchestrating attacks – Asaduzzaman Sarkar, Toffazzal, Sharif, Rafi, Kamrul Islam from the Faculty of Agriculture, Bajlur Rahman Mollah from Faculty of Animal Science, and Munir from Department of Genetics; immediate implementation of a one-year combined degree, rejecting the current model of three separate degrees.
The students warned that failure to meet these demands would lead to a total campus lockdown and blackout.
Their anger was further fueled by a recent attack on Sunday evening, when at least four students were injured during a protest. Demonstrators had confined Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr AK Fazlul Haque Bhuiyan and nearly 250 teachers for over five hours, demanding the introduction of a single combined degree. Students allege that the attackers were outsiders allowed onto campus with administrative support.
In response to the unrest, the university syndicate convened an emergency meeting on Sunday night, declaring an indefinite closure of the institution. Students were ordered to vacate all halls by 9am Monday, a directive that many students openly defied.
The agitated students alleged that without ensuring justice for the attacks on students by outsiders during their peaceful demonstration, the administration has ordered them to leave the halls which cannot be accepted. They warned that they will continue protest until their demands are met.
