The High Court suspended the ’emergency notice’ issued four years ago banning all political organizations and their activities in the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). A High Court bench comprising Justice KM Zahid Sarwar and Justice Md Khasruzzaman gave this order after hearing a writ application on Monday in the afternoon.
After that, regarding the High Court’s order on the political activities in BUET, University Vice-Chancellor Professor Satya Prasad Majumder said, “We have to accept whatever the High Court has said.”
We cannot be accused of contempt of court. We have not yet received the High Court order. We will follow the legal process once we receive the order.
Imtiaz Hossain Rahim Rabbi, a student of 21st batch of civil engineering department of BUET and a member of the Central Committee of Chhatra League, challenged the validity of the notification announcing the banning of all political organizations and their activities in the High Court in the morning.
In 2019, after student Abrar Fahad was beaten to death by Chhatra League activists, student politics was banned in BUET campus in the face of student agitation. Late on March 28, central president of Chhatra League, office secretary and many others went to BUET campus. Students considered this kind of activity as the initiation of politics anew in the campus. According to them, Imtiaz Hossain Rahim, a student of the 21st batch of the Civil Engineering Department and a member of the Central Committee of the Chhatra League, organized the gathering in violation of the rules of the university.
In this incident, the students gathered in front of Shaheed Minar of BUET and held a press conference on the afternoon of March 29. They then staged a protest in front of the office of the Director of Student Welfare (DSW) of the university till evening. Five points of demands were highlighted from the press conference. Among these were the permanent expulsion of Imtiaz Hossain Rahim Rabbi, a student of the 21st batch of the university’s civil engineering department and a member of the central committee of the Chhatra League, and the cancellation of hall seats.
On October 10, 2019, a writ was filed challenging the validity of the notification suspending political activities on the BUET campus. In the writ, the secretary of the secondary and higher education department of the Ministry of Education has been made the defendant.