The Students’ Movement Against Discrimination, a platform of students demanding quota reform in government jobs, on Sunday demanded to enact a law by calling a special session of Jatiya Sangsad within a week, terming the day’s Supreme Court verdict ‘unclear’.
In a joint statement sent by one of the coordinators, Abdul Kader, the platform’s 59 coordinators and co-coordinators claimed that over 300 protesters were killed during their agitation, and the government could not avoid the responsibility of the killings.
They urged the people to continue the ‘Complete Shutdown’ programme and hold ghayebana janaza or funeral prayer in the absence of a body after Zuhr prayers across the country today.
‘There is no clear solution about the quota system in SC verdict and there is a scope of creating confusion in people’s mind,’ the statement said.
It reiterated their nine-point demand.
The demands include — an unconditional public apology from prime minister by taking responsibility for the murders during the movement, removal of home minister Asaduzzaman Khan and road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader, suspension of police officers in areas where protesters got killed, removal of vice-chancellors and proctors of Dhaka University, Jahangirnagar University and Rajshahi University, banning Chhatra League’s politics on campuses and making student councils effective, and immediate reopening of universities’ campuses and dormitories.
The platform also claimed that at least three of their coordinators were disappeared.
It, however, did not mention the date or time or place of their ‘disappearance’.
Amid countrywide violent job quota protest, the Appellate Division on Sunday asked the government to recruit 93 per cent job seekers on the basis of merits and appoint remaining 7 per cent maintaining 5 per cent quota for the children of freedom fighters, one per cent each for the ethnic minority, and the people with disabilities, and third genders.
Students across the country started demonstration early this month demanding the cancelation of a High Court verdict that had asked the government to restore 30 per cent job quotas for descendants of freedom fighters.