FE Report
Dhaka University (DU) acting registrar Sayed Rezaur Rahman was put on suspension Friday amid strong protest by the ruling party's student wing over mentioning Ziaur Rahman as the country's first president in the DU souvenir published to mark its 95th anniversary.
The university authority issued a circular on the day, stating that VC AAMS Arefin Siddique had ordered the removal of Rezaur Rahman with immediate effect.
DU sources said the university published the souvenir with distorted information and Rahman was responsible for the publication. Being infuriated by the 'distortion' of history by the country's largest public university, Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) launched a violent protest on the campus demanding immediate resignation of DU VC, according to the witnesses.
They said a group of the demonstrators first confined the registrar to his office for nearly an hour just before his suspension.
As the situation turned worse, proctor of the university Amjad Ali came up and pacified the protesting students before making an exit for the registrar.
The protesters attacked the VC's car when he was returning home at about 3:00 pm. The VC escaped unhurt but the windshield of the car was damaged.
Protesters alleged that the mistake was made willingly by the acting registrar, who was appointed during the last regime of the then BNP-led four-party political alliance.
In the face of the strong student protest, the university authority took the decision of his immediate suspension.
However, the decision had no positive result and the students raised the demand for immediate resignation of the VC.
Talking to the FE correspondent, a protester said being the guardian of the country's leading educational institution the VC cannot ignore his responsibility for the serious distortion.
"Our message is clear: we'll continue our protest until the VC resigns," he added.
An article of the souvenir mentioned that Ziaur Rahman became the president of Bangladesh on Apr 21, 1977 after the Liberation War and was killed in a military coup on May 30, 1981.
It also described first President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as "one of the main leaders of Bangladesh (who) was at the forefront in the struggle to carve out Bangladesh from East Pakistan and is considered the Father of the Nation."
bdnews24.com adds: Under fire from all quarters over the publication of a piece containing botched-up history in the anniversary souvenir, Dhaka University Vice Chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddiqui has blamed registrar Syed Rezaur Rahman for the fiasco.
According to the VC, the author is to blame for the faux pas and has been sacked accordingly.
After a day of violent protests, the VC attended a press conference at his residence on Friday evening and conceded that some "very serious errors" had been spotted in one of the pieces in the souvenir.
He said that since the piece was a byline piece, the author was primarily at fault and has been sacked. Copies of the souvenir have been confiscated, he said.
He added that only a probe could reveal if the mistakes were intentional or inadvertent.
Speaking at the press conference, VC Siddique said, "Friday was the university's foundation day. On this occasion a souvenir was released during a discussion to mark the day. We immediately marked that there are mistakes in it. So copies of the souvenir were withdrawn during the event itself."
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Source: The Financial Express