Information and broadcasting adviser Mahfuj Alam came under attack on Wednesday night while speaking at a Jagannath University students’ sit-in in front of the Kakrail Mosque police barricade near the chief adviser’s official residence Jamuna in Dhaka.
A protesting student allegedly hurled a water bottle at Mahfuj when he came to brief the protesters after 10:00pm about the outcome of a meeting between the representative team of the JnU administration and government representatives about the protesters’ demands and the situation.
Mahfuj left the barricade area after the attack and minutes later near the barricade he told the media that a group that felt jealous of a specific person for past eight months and also threatened violence on online platforms was involved in the attack.
He assumed that what happened to him was perpetrated by a ‘saboteur’ who entered various movements and attempted to sabotage them.
‘I won’t just mention their names today,’ Mahfuj said, adding that it is the responsibility of the media and the administration to find out them and their political affiliations.
Protesters said that they did not support such attack. They, however, claimed that the water bottle throwing issue was being presented exaggeratedly.
‘We are not supporting the attack while the bottle issue is being used to divert our logical movement,’ said JnU law department student Ismail Hasan on Thursday.
Immediately after the incident, the JnU teachers association, however, expressed regret over the incident.
National Citizen Party leaders Hasnat Abdullah and Sarjis Alam on their Facebook posts condemned the attack on Mahfuj. Â
On Wednesday JnU students held a ‘Long March to Jamuna’ demanding introduction of a ‘housing stipend’ for 70 per cent of JnU students from the forthcoming fiscal year and continuing it until securing permanent accommodation, full approval of the proposed university budget for 2025–26 FY without any reductions, and immediate approval and implementation of the university’s second campus project in the next ECNEC meeting under a priority scheme.
At least 50 teachers and students of JnU were injured in police action when the police intercepted the march at the Kakrail Mosque police barricade, where the protesters were staging their sit-in for the second day on Thursday.
