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Jatiyatavadi Chhatra Dal, the student wing of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, on Thursday expressed its full support to the ongoing movement waged by students and jobseekers demanding quota reform in government jobs.

Addressing a press conference at the BNP Naya Paltan central office, the Chhatra Dal leadership said that there was no need for any quota in Bangladesh at the moment except for a very limited percentage of quotas for the people with special needs.

‘We gave moral support to the quota reform movement in 2018 and ordinary students participated in it. We are supporting the movement that is happening now. We believe that through the democratic movement, there should be a final settlement on the issue,’ Chhatra Dal general secretary Nashir Uddin Nashir said.

He said that Chhatra Dal believed that this movement would be successful by thwarting the ‘criminals’ of Chhatra League and Juba League, which were ruling Awami League’s student and youth organisations respectively.

‘We want to remind you [journalists] that the movement that took place in 2018 was a movement for quota reform. But the illegitimate prime minister deliberately abolished the whole quota system without reforming it,’ he said, adding that none of those who participated in the movement at that time wanted the abolition of quotas, but wanted reforms.

Chhatra Dal president Rakibul Islam Rakib said that their organisation applauded those who were waging the anti-quota movement.

He said that at the same time, Chhatra Dal maintained that this illegal fascist government ran this culture of enforced disappearances and murders against which protestors must speak out. They must speak out against the illegitimate interferences of India in the movement to restore democracy.

‘I am telling all the leaders of Dhaka College who are leading the anti-quota movement, that your fellow student Atiqur Rahman Russell has gone missing, and we expect that they will also demand to find him,’ he said.

The press conference also said that on July 1, Dhaka College unit of Chhatra Dal vice president Russell was picked up by some plainclothes men and since then he remained traceless.

Rakib said, ‘There is no case in Russell’s name, no warrant. He is missing for no reason. Our brothers are going missing one after another... Till today we haven’t found them.’

‘If our brothers are forced into disappearance like this… We want to make it clear that not a single leader or activist of Chhatra Dal is afraid. Chhatra Dal will be on the street in search of Russell. We will definitely take revenge for our brothers,’ he said.