Demand for separate univ: Angry commuters force Titumir College students to end protest
The blockade created long tailbacks on the roads to Uttara, Gulshan, Tejgaon, and Farmgate, leaving hundreds of vehicles stuck and commuters suffering for over an hour
Frustrated commuters stuck in traffic jams in the capital's Mohakhali today (24 October) forced the students of Government Titumir College to end their demonstration, which had created severe gridlocks on multiple roads.
The students had brought out a procession and blocked the Amtali intersection around midday. They staged protests there for one and a half hours to push their demand, raised along with the six other colleges affiliated with Dhaka University (DU), to bring the institution under a separate public university.
The blockade created long tailbacks on the roads to Uttara, Gulshan, Tejgaon, and Farmgate, leaving hundreds of vehicles stuck and commuters suffering for over an hour.
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Soon after, angry commuters took to the streets and had heated arguments with the students, following which protesters ended their demonstration and went back to the college campus at around 1:15pm.
Earlier, some students were seen vandalising a bus and getting involved in a fight with a motorcycle rider soon after the blockade started. They were quickly stopped by other students.
Titumir College and six other colleges – Dhaka College, Eden Mohila College, Government Shaheed Suhrawardy College, Kabi Nazrul Government College, Begum Badrunnesa Government Mohila College, and Mirpur Government Bangla College – were affiliated with DU in 2017.
Most of the students of these institutions initially welcomed the decision.
However, several years later, as the problems they had been facing worsened and allegations of discrimination surfaced, students of the seven colleges started demanding the cancellation of the institutions' affiliation with DU and the establishment of an autonomous public university exclusively for these colleges.
Recently, the students of these colleges staged demonstrations in various spots of the capital, to push their three-point charter of demands.
The demands are – the immediate formation of a commission to establish the university for these colleges, a draft proposal from the commission within 30 days, and assurance from DU that no session jams will occur until the new university is established.
