Over 50K student affiliates of Sheikh Hasina's party are now in hiding

Bangladesh Chhatra League BCL the student wing of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas Awami League AL party ruled over Bangladesh for over 15 years before she was ousted and forced to flee following a studentled movement in August today find themselves in hiding and at the receiving end of interim governments actionAt least 50000 affiliates of Bangladesh Chhatra League BCL the student wing of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas Awami League are now struggling to continue their tertiary education a report by Al Jazeera statedOn October 23 the leader of the Bangladeshi interim government led by Muhammad Yunus banned BCL terming it a terrorist organisation According to Bangladeshs Home Ministry the BCL had a history of serious misconduct over the past 15 years including violence harassment and exploitation of public resources Al Jazeera reportedNot long ago I was a voice of authority here an undergraduate student of applied chemistry told Al Jazeera Now I am running around like a fugitive with no probable futureThis students case is not an isolated one All affiliates like him who had a powerful hold over college campuses in Bangladesh collapsedThe deadly protests began in July after college students demanded the abolition of a controversial reservation system in government jobs that they said favoured supporters of the governing partyThough Bangladeshs top court scrapped the quota the protests soon morphed into a wider call for the removal of Hasinas autocratic regime marked by allegations of human rights violationsThe student told Al Jazeera that he did not participate in the governments crackdown against the protests My sisters were part of the protests he said I also believed in the cause but was trapped by party obligationsTalking about his involvement in the nowbanned party the student said I was a good student who cared little for politics but at Dhaka University hall politics was unavoidable You either joined or you suffered He admitted that being a BCL leader would improve his prospects of landing a government jobOn August 5 protestors stormed prominent government buildings including Sheikh Hasinas residence and the parliament and the 77yearold prime minister fled the countryThe violence however did not end with Hasinas fall The former perpetrators of state atrocities became the new targets as hundreds of Awami League politicians and members including students were attacked or killed Many went into hiding or were detained while attempting to flee according to Al JazeeraAccording to the estimates of Awami League at least 50000 of its student affiliates across the nation are now in limbo struggling to continue their tertiary educationShahreen Ariana a BCL leader from Rajshahi University was arrested on October 18 on forged charges according to her family She was detained while trying to sit for a termfinal exam Saikat Raihan another BCL leader at Rajshahi University was arrested on the same dayThe wave of violence against Awami Leagueaffiliated students has spread across campuses On the outskirts of the capital former Jahangirnagar University BCL activist Shamim Ahmed was beaten to death on September 18 while Masud another BCL leader was killed by a mob in Rajshahi on September 7 as reported by Al JazeeraThe Muhammad Yunusled interim government that took over Bangladesh issued a gazette on October 23 officially banning the BCL under the AntiTerrorism Act 2009 a law that was brought ironically by Hasinas government soon after it came to power in 2009According to Al Jazeera for more than a decade the BCL ruled campuses with an iron grip The Chhatra Dal the student wing of the biggest opposition party the Bangladesh Nationalist Party managed to maintain a presence but was often on the defensive Meanwhile the Islami Chhatra Shibir the student body of the JamaateIslami Bangladeshs largest Muslim party was forced undergroundSeveral media reports over 16 years claim incidents of students being forced out of campuses tortured or even gruesomely murdered by BCL members on suspicion of ties to the Shibir which in August this year was banned by the Hasina government under the same antiterror law now used against the BCLYunus government lifted the ban on the Shibir following which the tables have turned on the BCL more broadly with opposition student wings reclaiming control across campusesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever