Several hundred students of Dhaka College on Sunday morning staged a demonstration in Dhaka city, demanding changes in the draft ordinance of proposed Dhaka Central University.
Pressing for their demands, the protesting higher secondary-level students brought out a procession from the college campus in New Market area at about 10:30am and marched to Science Laboratory crossing, where they held a brief rally for about 10 munities.
Vehicular movement halted there during the demonstration disrupting the traffic on the capital鈥檚 extremely busy thoroughfare, said New Market police patrol inspector Sarder Babul Ahmed, adding that the students returned to the campus after the brief rally.
The protesting students ended their demonstration with a press conference at the college at which they alleged that the establishment of Dhaka Central University would result in the removal of Dhaka College鈥檚 college section teaching higher secondary students.
At the press conference, Dhaka College student Walid Hassan Rahim said that a scrutiny of the draft ordinance revealed to them that their institution鈥檚 college section would no longer exist once the proposed university was founded.
鈥榃e will not accept such a model (of the proposed university) in Dhaka College,鈥� he said, adding that they would go for tougher protests if the draft ordinance was not immediately scrapped or critically changed.
On October 10, honours and masters-level students of seven colleges, earlier affiliated to Dhaka University, announced a march towards the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education headquarters Shikkha Bhaban today, demanding the promulgation of the ordinance to establish proposed Dhaka Central University.
Seven public colleges鈥擠haka College, Begum Badrunnesa Government Girls鈥� College, Eden Mahila College, Government Bangla College, Government Shaheed Suhrawardy College, Government Titumir College and Kabi Nazrul Government College鈥攚ere affiliated to Dhaka University in 2017 before which they were under National University.
Following a widespread student movement over alleged deprivation of different facilities, the Dhaka University authorities on January 27 this year decided to cancel the affiliation of these colleges.
A section of teachers and students of the seven colleges opposed the structure of proposed Dhaka Central University since the authorities had published the draft ordinance.聽
