The government has postponed the graduation ceremony of the apprentice assistant superintendents of police of the 40th Bangladesh Civil Service, scheduled to be held on Sunday, amid criticism from the coordinators of the Student Movement Against Discrimination.
The movement coordinators had been alleging that all the apprentice ASPs were leaders and activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of the Awami League that was ousted from power amid a student-led mass uprising on August 5.
The graduation ceremony was postponed all of a sudden on Saturday night, hours before it was scheduled to take place at the Bangladesh Police Academy in Rajshahi鈥檚 Sardah Sunday morning.
Sabina Yeasmin, additional deputy police commissioner (media) of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police, in a WhatsApp message on Saturday night informed journalists that the graduation ceremony of the 40th BCS Cadre apprentice ASPs was postponed due to unavoidable reasons.
The interim government鈥檚 home adviser, Lieutenant General (retired) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, who along with the chiefs of the Bangladesh Police and the Rapid Action Battalion and other top government officials reached Rajshahi on Saturday morning to attend the graduation ceremony, told journalists at RMP headquarters on Sunday that the ceremony was postponed due to 鈥榓 reason鈥� and they would try to arrange the ceremony very soon.
When journalists again asked the adviser about the specific reason behind the postponement, Jahangir Alam mentioned 鈥榰navoidable reasons鈥� for the postponement and left the dais immediately.
On Saturday night, rejecting his invitation to the graduation ceremony as a guest, Salahuddin Ammar, one of the coordinators of the Student Movement Against Discrimination at Rajshahi University, alleged that the recruitment process of the 40th BCS (Police) cadre was completed during the 鈥榝ascist Awami League regime鈥�, and at least 62 BCL leaders were going to join the passing out ceremony.
As the news of postponing the graduation ceremony spread, Salahuddin Ammar in another post on his Facebook timeline said that they would never accept any Awami fascist.
鈥楢n investigation must be carried out first [to know whether the ASPs were appointed on the basis of their political identity], and then [the authorities should] appoint the competent persons鈥�, he wrote.
