Editorial Desk :
The ruling party students extorting money has become a normal affair inside and outside of the university campuses.
Instead of acting as a force for students’ common good on the campuses, student politics has for long turned into a money-making venture.
Many student leaders belonging to the ruling party now own crores of taka.
These students thrive because they are used as muscle power by the party in government and they take this cue as an opportunity to extort money, albeit illegally, from street vendors, human haulers and other sources.
They do not have to face the law.
On the Chattogram University campus on Saturday, however, the BCL students did not ask extortion from the common people.
They reportedly demanded Tk 15 lakh from the Vice-Chancellor and Transport Department of the university in connection with the shuttle train accident when at least 16 students of the university were injured as they collided with a fallen tree while riding on the roof of the shuttle train last Thursday night. Three of them are still under treatment.
On refusal, these students went berserk and vandalised and put on fire university properties allegedly ‘capitalising’ on the shuttle train accident, as has been mentioned in the statement of two cases made by the university administration last Saturday.
A total of 65 vehicles, the Vice-Chancellor’s residence, teachers’ club and police box were vandalised and set on fire.
Obviously, the leaders and workers of Chhatra League were involved in this vandalism.
Among the 14 accused in the cases, 12 are Chhatra League leaders and workers.
As the cases mentioned 1000 unnamed persons in the act of vandalisation, the general students of Chattogram University got panicked and formed a human chain demanding implementation of four points including not to harass ordinary students in the case of vandalism.
Since there are various footages, videos and the scene of the incident, it is expected that the real culprits of the incidents would be easily found out and punished, and the innocent students will not be implicated in cases and harmed.
Having said that, for the students getting increasingly involved in the criminal activities on the campuses the present wrongly-guided violent national politics has to blame.
As the students are used as muscle power by the party in government, these students get government protection despite unleashing terror on the campuses.
There are many examples to support the view that the BCL students have turned public universities as torture centres. The killing of Abrar Fahad, a Buet student, is still fresh in our mind in this regard.
The impunity the BCL students receive has made them even more wide-chested to engage in anti-disciplinary actions.
Today the educational atmosphere on the campuses has become so polluted by this deviated student politics, every guardian is now apprehensive that if their wards get involved in student politics their lives will be destroyed, they might not grow to become decent human beings once they are involved in politics.
The politically-minded teachers of universities encourage the students to join the anti-social activities of politics.
Student politics is there in other democratic countries of the world, but students are not used as muscle power by the party in the government.
Regular student council elections still take place in the public universities in India.
The student politics at Oxford and Cambridge universities, for example, should act as a beacon as in these famous universities, the student councils play their due role in advancing the student’s cause.
World famous people are constantly seen giving speeches before the students.
Compared to these universities, student politics has turned Bangladesh’s public universities as virtual crime centres with the active support from the government.
