Seven students of Barishal University went on hunger strike on Thursday night, pressing for a three-point demand, including the institution鈥檚 infrastructure development.
They started the hunger strike from 10:30pm Thursday at Academic Building-1 on the campus.
The two other demands they raised are land acquisition for the university and reforms in transportation facilities.
Unable to persuade the students to break the hunger strike, university vice chancellor Professor Dr Muhammad Toufiq Alam spent the night in a mosquito net next to them.
The seven students on hunger strike are: Sharmila Zaman Senjuti of English Department, Amiya Mandal of mass communication and journalism, Tajul Islam of accounting and information systems department, Abubakar Siddique of chemistry department, Piyal Hasan of philosophy department, Tamim Ahmed Riaz of public administration department, and Shawkat Osman of law department.
Sharmila Zaman Senjuti said, 鈥楨ven peaceful demonstrations failed to move the authorities. Now we have started this strike. We will not back down until the demands are realised.鈥�
Shawkat Osman said, 鈥楩or long we have been holding various programmes, including road blockades, for our logical demands. But the University Grants Commission has never contacted us about the demands.鈥�
Barisal University proctor associate professor Rahat Hossain Faysal while admitting that the demands of the hunger striking students were logical, added that development work was ongoing.
鈥榃e are progressing with the land acquisition process. It is because of their lack of trust the students have gone on hunger strike,鈥� he said.
For the past 36 days, since July 29 Barishal University students have been staging rallies, human chains, road blockade and other protest programmes to press home the 3-point demand.