The Council for the Preservation of Bangladesh General Students’ Rights, the platform which led the protests demanding reforms to quotas in civil service, has threatened to take to the streets again unless cases started by police against demonstrators are not lifted.
At a media briefing on Monday, it gave the administration a two-day deadline to the withdraw the cases “Police attacked peaceful demonstrations. Scores of students have been injured and then again accused in cases started by the police. One of our demands to call off the protests included, withdrawal of the cases which is yet to happen,” the Council’s Joint Convener Nurul Haque Nuru said in his written statement.
“We will launch protests once again, if the cases are not lifted by the next two days,” he said.
Claiming demonstrators not being involved in the attack on vice-chancellor’s residence, Nur said, “We demand the perpetrators of this heinous attack to be brought to justice.”
The platform is grateful to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her instructions on medical expenses for the students injured in violence, he told the media on the Dhaka University campus.
“The prime minister has accepted our demands following which, we called off the protests. But conspiracies are on to divert our protests, despite intelligence reports suggesting there was no plot behind the demonstrations.”
Protesting a report ran by Bangla national Daily Ittefaq over the platform’s leaders, which Nur described as ‘false and fabricated’, the platform called on the newspaper to issue a formal apology by Monday.
Flanked by Convener Hasan Al Mamun, Joint Convener Rashed Khan, Nur told the media briefing, “If they do not apologise, then education institutions across the country will boycott the newspaper.”