Call for edn adviser’s resignation: HSC examinees storm Secretariat, stage protest
75 hurt as cops, army men charge truncheons
Photo: The Daily Rays
At least 75 people were injured as clashes broke out at the Secretariat between law enforcers and HSC examinees, who were demonstrating for various demands, including the resignation of Education Adviser Prof CR Abrar and the education secretary.
Police and army personnel charged truncheons and fired tear gas canisters as students stormed the Secretariate complex yesterday, triggering a chase and counter-chase that lasted for over an hour.
Protests also erupted in different parts of the country, with demonstrators blocking key roads for hours. Their demands also included the publication of a full and accurate list of the deceased and injured in the Milestone jet crash.
Photo: The Daily Rays
The students were protesting the government’s delayed response in postponing yesterday’s HSC exam, despite the tragic jet crash at Milestone School and College in Diabari the day before.
The government announced the postponement around 3:00am, just hours before the test was to begin. The students said they were angered by the late decision.
Amid the protest, the government postponed tomorrow’s HSC and equivalent exams and removed Siddiq Zubair from his post of senior secretary of the education ministry.
Mahfuz Alam, the information and broadcasting adviser and member secretary of the Public Administration Affairs Committee, confirmed the information in a Facebook post. No official reason was given.
Photo: The Daily Rays
In Dhaka, several hundred students, mostly HSC examinees, from various colleges in Dhanmondi and nearby areas brought out a procession and first gathered in front of the Board of Secondary and Higher Education. They later marched towards the Secretariat, defying police barriers at several points.
They started demonstrating around 2:15pm when several hundred took position at the Secretariat, prompting the authorities to close all entry points to the administrative complex as a security measure. Students from many other colleges joined the protesters, witnesses said.
Additional police members and army personnel were deployed there.
The situation escalated around 4:15pm when a group of protesters, mostly the HSC examinees, stormed into the secretariat and vandalised several cars and motorcycles inside the compound.
Photo: The Daily Rays
Law enforcers and army personnel responded by charging batons and firing tear gas canisters to disperse the crowd. Both sides hurled brick chunks at each other, and the clash continued for over an hour before law enforcers finally drove the protesters out of the secretariat and adjacent areas.
The clashes triggered panic among government staffers and commuters in the surrounding areas.
At least 75 of the injured, mostly students, took treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said Inspector Md Faruk, in charge of DMCH police outpost.
Talking to The Daily Star, Aunwho Hossain Nihal, an HSC candidate from Dhaka City College, said, “Even after the tragic crash, where some of our younger brothers died, the education ministry took no action to defer today’s exam until we threatened to demand the adviser’s resignation. Only then, in the middle of the night, did they decide to postpone today’s exam. Now, we are demanding the resignation of both the minister and the education secretary for their negligence.”
Sudipto Protto Sen, another HSC examinee, said someone lost a brother, someone their sister, and an examinee lost his mother. “That’s why we wanted the exam to be postponed.”
“But they initially refused to meet our demand. Later, when the issue gained traction on social media, they announced around 3:00am that today’s HSC exam would be postponed. Our question is: why didn’t they make that decision earlier? How does it make sense to announce it at 3:00am?”
Photo: The Daily Rays
COUNTRYWIDE PROTEST
Apart from Dhaka, students with similar demands also staged protests in front of at least five education boards: Barishal, Chattogram, Sylhet, Jashore, Dinajpur, and Cumilla. At each location, students locked the gates and held sit-ins for several hours.
In Barishal, students blocked the Barishal-Dhaka highway for around one and a half hours and locked the main gate of the Barishal Education Board.
The demonstration began around 11:30am and involved students from both secondary and higher secondary institutions.
Due to the blockade, not only did traffic come to a standstill, leading to long tailbacks on both sides of the highway, causing suffering to commuters, but also road communication between the southern region and the rest of Bangladesh was severely impeded.
At the same time, the protesters locked the main gate of the Barishal Education Board at the city’s Natullahbad area. The protesters cleared the road around 1:00pm.
Later in the evening, students took the street again at around 7:00pm in front of the education board. The demonstration continued till filing the report at around 8:00pm. However, the highway was not blocked in the evening.
Photo: The Daily Rays
In Chattogram, students also blocked a major road. The protest began around 2:00pm in front of the Chattogram Education Board office in the city’s Sholoshohor area and continued till 5:30pm.
In Sylhet, hundreds of students marched from Chowhatta point to the education board office in the Alampur area around 4:00pm. They blocked the Sylhet-Zakiganj regional highway for around two hours from around 5:00pm.
The blockade caused a long tailback, forcing commuters to walk to their destinations. Vehicles were seen taking alternative routes or turning back.
In Cumilla, students locked the gate of the main building of Cumilla Education Board for around one and half hours.
The protesters took out a procession from the city’s Pubali Square area at around 11:30am and marched to the education board. Then, they locked the gate of the main building.
In Mymensingh, students blocked the Ganginarpar intersection for around one hour in the morning.
In Narayanganj, the Student Federation of Bangladesh formed a human chain demanding a proper investigation into the aircraft crash and fair compensation for the victims.
