Bangladesh engineering university closed

Authorities closed Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology indefinitely yesterday following weeks of student unrest.

The students vacated their dormitories by 5pm as violence gripped the entire campus amid student-police clashes that left some 50 injured.

Vice-Chancellor Prof. Ali Murtaza ordered the closure of the country's premier engineering university rejecting the students' demands for withdrawal of punishment of students, arrest of those who killed a student on June 8 and lifting restrictions on student politics and cultural activities.

Campus sources said riot police charged with batons and fired dozens of teargas shells to disperse the agitating students at around 2.30pm immediately after the university was declared closed amid raging violence.

Earlier, the students' representatives met the new Vice-Chancellor Prof. Ali Mortuza and gave him one hour to meet their revised four-point demand by 12 noon.

The agitating students laid siege to the vice-chancellor's office to mount pressure for accepting their demands by the deadline. The authorities deployed paramilitary troops besides riot police who dispersed the agitating students.

Despite police action, some 30 students continued the hunger strike until yesterday evening. A move was underway to forcibly shift the fasting students to hospital. The students began a fast-unto-death in the university campus last Monday.

As the situation kept slipping out of control, the vice-chancellor called an emergency meeting with deans, provosts, directors of different institutions and senior teachers and decided on the closure of the university for an indefinite period.

"The situation had deteriorated to such an extent with students cutting telephone and electricity lines, there was no choice but to shut the university indefinitely," the vice chancellor told reporters.

The situation started getting tense with the killing of a student, Sabequnnahar Sony, in the crossfire during a gunbattle between rival activists of the ruling BNP's student front, the JCD, on June 8.

After the killing, the university was closed and it reopened on August 11.