DHAKA, 22 August 2007 – Dozens of students were injured and over 100 others were arrested after clashes broke out between agitating students and police in Dhaka yesterday.
The clashes began yesterday when police attempted to break up more than 500 students who rallied on the Dhaka University campus. Students, fed up with having the army on campus, burned a military van and damaged at least 50 vehicles in renewed violence at the university, witnesses said.
At least 150 students were hurt after police fired teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the stone-throwing and stick-wielding students at university, they said.
The country’s army-backed interim administration, which had deployed the army in January after months of political violence said it has ordered troops to withdraw from the campus, following the protests.
“The interim government deeply apologized for the incident and ordered immediate withdrawal of the army camp from the campus and an inquiry into the unfortunate incident,” a statement from the Information Ministry said. More than 100 students were injured in similar clashes overnight, after students protested against the presence of army troops at Dhaka University stadium during a football match, witnesses said.
Troops have been camping in the gymnasium since then. Monday’s unrest, the first major defiance of the emergency restrictions, spread across campus after troops assaulted some students. Hundreds of police rushed in, firing teargas and rubber bullets, the witnesses said. The students hit back with sticks and stones.
Classes and exams were postponed at Dhaka University in the wake of the violence, while students called for an indefinite strike on the 40,000-strong campus. The Dhaka University Teachers Association said it supported student demands that the army camp be pulled out of the campus.
Violence flared anew yesterday as hundreds of students returned to campus carrying sticks and challenging police. Police again responded by firing teargas shells, witnesses said. But the students forced police to retreat from the campus and then burned effigies of the army chief, Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed, and the interim head of the law and information ministries, Mainul Husein. Students returned to dormitories after the police withdrew from campus.
A statement from army headquarters said a soldier who was accused of starting a brawl with students on Monday had been withdrawn from duty to face an inquiry.
As reports of the Dhaka University violence spread beyond the capital, students at Jahangirnagar University, 40 km north of the city, barricaded a highway for several hours yesterday, damaging a dozen vehicles on the highway.
The student protests also spread to Sher-e-Bangla University at Mirpur in Dhaka and at the country’s two other major universities, Chittagong University in the southeast and Rajshahi University in the northwest.
