JU Sangskritik Jote enforces strike on campus

Jahangirnagar Sangskritik Jote kept the social science and new arts faculties locked for some two and a half hours since 8:00am and the transport depot under siege, conducted campaigns in classes and brought out a protest procession during their strike yesterday demanding the proctor's resignation.

The jote claims Prof Tapan Kumar Saha left after ordering police to charge baton on Jahangirnagar University students blockading the Dhaka-Aricha highway on Monday. He had also kept the Prantik gate closed, cutting off their escape, they added.

The blockade was part of a half-day countrywide hartal of Progressive Students' Alliance and Anti-Imperialist Students' Union, two major alliances of left-leaning students' bodies.

It was in protest of "government's failure" to arrest the killers of Comilla Victoria Government College student Sohagi Jahan Tonu, whose body was found inside Comilla cantonment on March 20.

Talking to The Daily Star, Prof Tapan refuted most of the allegations, claiming that the gate was ajar and that he had left after the demonstrators turned down his request to lift the blockade.