Hundreds of students, who fought fierce battles, demanded removal of an army camp that was set up on the university campus immediately after a state of emergency was clamped on January 11.
Witnesses said police fired rubber bullets and teargas shells, charged with batons and sprayed water cannons. Police also raided dormitories and beat students who had taken shelter there.
Students retaliated by pelting stones at the police. They also shouted slogans, burnt effigies of the army chief and erected barricades.
The university’s acting vice-chancellor and a number of teachers who had gone to see the injured students at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital were also injured in the police action.
Angry students called an indefinite strike at the university from Tuesday in protest against the “police and army brutality”.
The protest ensued after two military officers reportedly assaulted a teacher and a number of students at the university playground during a football match on Monday afternoon.
Protest march
On Tuesday, students, teachers and employees of the university took out processions protesting the police action.
Demonstrators enforced a strike and burnt vehicles passing through the campus.
They set fire to an army vehicle and beat up its driver as it was crossing a road near the campus and smashed several vehicles at Shahbagh and Nilkhet on the fringe of the university.
Students at other universities and colleges across the country also staged demonstrations and expressed solidarity with their Dhaka counterparts.
The military authority, meanwhile, withdrew the officers from the camp and ordered an inquiry. The acting vice-chancellor said he had received a message from the army headquarters that the officers would be tried in a military court. Besides, the military will remove the camp from the campus within the shortest possible time.
Govt relents
Dhaka, PTI: The interim government in Bangladesh on Tuesday ordered the removal of a makeshift army camp from the Dhaka University campus.
The government said it “deeply regretted” the incidents and ordered withdrawal of the army camp from the campus “by Wednesday”, coinciding with a deadline set by the students.