Buet crisis to end soon, says university 

The ongoing crisis at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) is going to end soon as the university is on the last stage of fulfilling the students' demands, said related sources.

Buet has so far fulfilled one of the demands, that of expelling the students who have been charged for the murder of Abrar Fahad. 

Two other demands of the protesting students were to punish the students who were involved in ragging in different halls, and a system to punish the students who become involved in politics on campus. 

Buet found the demands of the protesting students logical and beneficial to the university. 

"We will comply with all three demands of the students so that there is a congenial atmosphere on the Buet campus. Our committees are working on them. We have already met one of the demands, and hopefully we will resolve the other issues soon," said professor Mizanur Rahman, director of the Directorate of Student's Welfare at Buet.

"We held a meeting on this issue today. We are at the final stage and we still need five to six more meetings," he said on Saturday. 

The protesting students are also eagerly waiting for Buet to announce that their other demands have been met.  

Tithi, spokesperson of the movement at Buet, told The Business Standard that they expect the administration to meet their demand in the shortest possible time. 

"We want a congenial academic atmosphere on campus. That is why we are sacrificing our days on the protest. We want to make sure that Buet student will never face any violence," she said.

"It is a good sign that the administration is working faster than it did the previous time," she added. 

Mehrab Siam, a protestor, said, "The Buet administration told us that they have been working sincerely to resolve the problems to meet our demands. They also assured us that those will be resolved within a week."  

Professor Dr AKM Masud, president of the Buet Teachers' Association, told The Business Standard that both the teachers and the students have been voicing the same demands for a safe campus. 

"No leader of the Buet Teachers' Association wants to be Vice-Chancellor or to hold any other post. We had demanded the resignation of Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Saiful Islam for negligence of duty. However, we will support him if he shows that he can run the university strictly and uphold its image," he said. 

On Thursday night Buet expelled 25 students for alleged involvement in the much-talked about Abrar Fahad murder. All of them were charged in the murder case. The university also gave six other students different terms of punishment for breaching discipline.

Buet's Board of Residence and Discipline took the decision on the basis of a report submitted by a probe committee formed over the Abrar murder. 

On November 13, police charged 25 current and former members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League's Buet unit for murdering Abrar Fahad.

Among them 21 have already been arrested while four others are absconding.

On October 6, Bangladesh Chhatra League activists beat Abrar to death for alleged affiliation with Islami Chhatra Shibir.

Abrar, 21, was a second-year student of electrical and electronics engineering at Buet.

The incident triggered nationwide protests as students of universities across the country took to the streets demanding arrest and capital punishment of the killers.

Later Buet complied with another demand of the protesting students by banning teacher and student politics on the university campus.