Ganatantrik Chhatra Jote, a coalition of seven left-leaning student organisations, launched a week-long mass signature campaign, demanding solutions to food, accommodation and healthcare crises faced by students, at Rajshahi University on Thursday.
The campaign began on the premises of the RU Shahid Shukahranjan Samaddar Students-Teachers Cultural Centre with a signature booth.
Organisers said that the campaign would continue for the next seven days across academic buildings and residential halls of the university to gather support from the students for their demands.
Their demands include ensuring 100 per cent residential accommodation, reopening and maintaining halls鈥� common rooms and allotting seats as per the university ordinance, abolishing the Tk 50 provost鈥檚 signature fee for seat allocation, replacing the existing catering system in halls鈥� dining with nutritious food services and ensuring round-the-clock healthcare services at the university medical centre with adequate medical staff, availability of ambulances and medicines and pharmacies at key campus locations.
The alliance also reiterated calls for holding the long-overdue Rajshahi University Central Students鈥� Union elections, establishing an independent cell to address campus violence and cyberbullying and conducting neutral investigations into recent incidents, including the burning of the Qur鈥檃n, cocktail blasts and attacks on alliance-led programmes.
鈥榃e are campaigning on the fundamental issues faced by students. There is a growing consensus among the student body in support of our demands,鈥� said Fuad Ratul, convener of RU unit Samajtantrik Chhatra Front.
On July 8, the Democratic Student Alliance held a press conference to raise the same demands.