Left-leaning student organisations at Jahangirnagar University on Tuesday protested at the politics of Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, on the university campus.
The left student bodies demonstrated on the campus on Tuesday night protesting at Shibir politics and vowed to prohibit the politics on the campus for its alleged role in killing JCD leader Habibur Rahman Kabir.
The Jahangirnagar University unit of Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that the long-standing claim of banning their entity on the campus was not true terming it as propaganda against them.
鈥楾he JU administration did not ban the Chhatra Shibir. The politics of tagging them as a banned entity essentially acted as a catalyst for perpetuating fascism鈥�, the student body said in a press release on Tuesday night.
Through the press release Chhatra Shibir has come out on the Jahangirnagar University campus revealing the identities of its top leaders鈥攑resident, secretary and publicity affairs secretary鈥攁fter about two and a half decades.
In the press release, Shibir said, 鈥楽ome individuals and groups have failed to deal with Chhatra Shibir ideologically and have created a narrative of prohibition. There was no evidence in support of the claim.鈥�
Quoting the decision taken at the 142nd meeting of the university syndicate held on August 15, 1989, Shibir said, 鈥楾he syndicate members made an observation that banning Shibir was out of jurisdiction of the university.鈥�
The Students Movement Against Discrimination, the platform that spearheaded the student-led mass uprising, however, in a statement demanded inclusive political practice with all organisations on the campus.
Contacted, JU vice-chancellor, pro-vice-chancellors had declined to comment on allowing Shibir on the campus.
Earlier in 1989, Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir allegedly took control of halls of residence at the university, triggering a clash with Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal activists and general students.
Following the clash, deputy general secretary of JU JCD Habibur Rahman Kabir was allegedly killed by Shibir activists on August 26, 1989, on the campus.
At that time, student bodies, including the Chhatra Dal, staged protests on the campus demanding a ban on Shibir on the campus.
In 1989, a total of 22 student bodies declared Shibir 鈥榖anned鈥� on the campus. Then vice-chancellor Saleh Uddin Ahmed, however, refused to impose a ban on Shibir after claiming it as out of jurisdiction.
In 1994, JCD activists allegedly beat a Shibir activist Kamrul Islam to death at the university鈥檚 Maulana Bhashani Hall, when he came to take the university鈥檚 entrance test.