Dhaka University teachers on Wednesday demanded a fair trial and punishment of the people who attacked on the Hindus in Satkhira over the staging of a drama marking Independence Day.
Students of Fatehpur High School staged a drama, scripted from Abul Mansur Ahmed’s Hujure Kebla, on Independence Day and local newspaper Drishtipat later published report that said that the drama had showed disrespect to the Prophet Mohammad. Local Muslims then attacked houses of a Hindu neighbourhood.
In protest at the attack, the university teachers teamed up as Sachetan Chhatra-Shikkhak Brinda, went on demonstrations at Aparajeya Bangla to push for their demand to free in 20 hours the detained headmistress of the Fatehpur school, Mita Rani Hazra, associate teacher Harun-or-Rashid and Class IX student Sayeed who acted in the drama.
‘We, the teachers of Dhaka University, will, otherwise, go on greater demonstrations in Satkhira,’ said the programme’s moderator Robaet Ferdous, a teacher of mass communication and journalism.
The teachers asked the government to compensate the victims of the attack and said that ‘misinterpretation of religion’ was what led to the ‘shameful’ incident.
Syed Anwar Hussain said, ‘In 1971, we did not want any Bangladesh where minority people would be repressed because of their creed.’
A victim of the attack, Lakshmipada Mondal, recalled the horror of the attack. ‘People who have not seen repression of the Bengalis by the Pakistani army in 1971 can have a glimpse of such incidents by visiting our neighbourhood,’ he said, demanding justice.
Ashim Chakrabarty, a newsman of Satkhira, accused a reporter of Drishtipat of inciting the Muslims and demanded that the newspaper should be banned.
Niranjan Adhikari, Azizur Rahman, Dalem Chandra Barman, Kaberi Gayan, Shudhangsha Sekhar Roy, Saiful Hoque, Golam Rabbani, Samia Nishat Amin, Ziaur Rahman, Mahbuba Nasreen, among other, expressed their solidarity with the rally. Several hundred students joined in.
The teachers and students on Tuesday night brought out a silent torch procession that ended at the Central Shaheed Minar after parading campus roads.