July uprising materialises DU students' dream of getting legal seats

The regular students of Dhaka University (DU) are getting an allocation of legal seats by the hall administration touting materialisation of their dream as seat management was under the control of ruling political parties' student wings for years.

Students were seen moving to their allocated seats and sharing joyous moments on social media getting rid of the misery of 'Gono Room' culture, where students, especially freshers, were accommodated usually by the ruling party's student wing.

After the interim government took charge following the student-led mass upsurge, the hall authorities announced the abolition of mass rooms and issued notices asking students to finish graduation and post-graduation leave dorms along with the announcement of allocating seats for regular students in phases.

Talking to BSS, several students expressed their satisfaction with the hall administration's role in recovering the rooms occupied by post-graduation completed students, political activists expiring studentship, and outsiders, and allocating it to regular students.

Before the ouster of the Awami League government, general students had no option but to accept, as someone calls it "political slavery", to stay in the halls as the administrations could not exercise authority in seat management.

Hall accommodation would have been fully controlled by leaders of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) in all 12 male dormitories, said students and house tutors.

Moreover, to survive in the politically allocated 'Gono rooms' or any other congested room, each student from first year to masters had to attend political events by force on a regular basis as a violation of political leaders' instructions would result in driving away from the dorms along with torture.

An artificial seat crisis was created in the dorms for regular students to sustain political authority, whereas around 50 percent of seats in all male dormitories were occupied by expired students, outsiders, and BCL leaders.

Availability of seats in the dorms increased as all BCL leaders, most of whom had no studentship, left the dorms after the fall of the AL government on 5 August.

Afterward, seats were allocated to each legal student who applied in two phases along with around 150 students under 2023-14 academic sessions at the Hazi Mohammad Mohsin hall, seat allocation committee convenour Aynul Islam told BSS.

"After allocating seats to everyone, we still have vacant seats in the dorm," Aynul said.

He added, "For the first time, first-year students were given seat allocation...In the past, allocation used to be given by hall authorities but students could not move to their seat because of political occupation."

Like Mohsin Hall, students from first year to masters, seats were allocated to other male residential halls.