A meeting intended to resolve a dispute over a motorcycle incident turned violent late on Wednesday night at Dhaka University, leaving at least four people seriously injured and sending the campus into turmoil.
The confrontation took place at around 12.05am on Thursday, 8 October, in the area around the university’s administrative building. Students and Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal activists from Masterda Surya Sen Hall and Sergeant Zahurul Haq Hall became involved in a clash after an attempt to settle an earlier dispute broke down.
The injured were identified as Ramadan Ali, a residential student of Surya Sen Hall; Shahriar Leon, member secretary of the Chhatra Dal unit at Sergeant Zahurul Haq Hall; Saif Ali Shithil, a member of the same hall unit; and Mahfuz Saurav, a student of the Department of Sociology.
They were taken to the emergency department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment. Ramadan Ali reportedly became unconscious during the clash and was taken to hospital in a university ambulance.
The dispute dates back to the afternoon of 5 October. According to accounts surrounding the incident, Mahfuz Saurav, a student of Sergeant Zahurul Haq Hall, was riding a motorcycle when he allegedly came close to hitting Ariful Islam Tarek, a member of the convening committee of the Surya Sen Hall Chhatra Dal unit.
Tarek reportedly protested over the incident, following which Saurav allegedly slapped him several times. The dispute did not end there.
The following day, Tuesday, Tarek and several associates reportedly stopped Saurav on the road and questioned him about the earlier incident. Saurav then allegedly left his motorcycle behind and fled from the scene. Students from Surya Sen Hall later recovered the motorcycle and took it to their hall.
The motorcycle subsequently became the focus of efforts to settle the wider dispute. On Wednesday night, representatives of both sides, including Shahriar Leon, the member secretary of the Chhatra Dal unit at Sergeant Zahurul Haq Hall, sat for a meeting at the mall area of the university.
The discussion, however, failed to produce a settlement. At one stage, tensions escalated and a chase and counter-chase broke out, eventually leading to physical confrontation.
Faim Shahriar Sajib, a student of Surya Sen Hall, alleged that members of the Zahurul Haq Hall unit arrived carrying sticks despite the meeting being arranged to settle the dispute. He alleged that they launched a sudden attack on the students from his hall and assaulted them.
Shahriar Leon rejected the allegation. According to him, Saurav had apologised for his mistake, but immediately afterwards people from Surya Sen Hall unexpectedly attacked them, triggering the confrontation.
There is also a separate allegation concerning the motorcycle. Saurav’s side claimed that Tarek’s associates had kept the motorcycle and demanded Tk 100,000 in exchange for returning it. When contacted about the original incident on 5 October, however, Saurav ended the phone call without responding to questions.
The conflicting accounts mean that the precise sequence of events leading to the late-night clash remains disputed. Both sides have accused the other of initiating the violence.
Dhaka University Proctor Israfili Ratan said on Thursday morning that the university administration had not received any written complaint from either side at that point. He said, however, that he had learnt that a complaint had been filed with the police in connection with the incident.
The clash has brought renewed attention to the way relatively local disputes between students can escalate when attempts at informal settlement fail. In this case, what began with a disagreement following a motorcycle incident developed into a confrontation involving students and activists from two university halls, with four people requiring hospital treatment.
The university administration’s next steps will depend, among other matters, on the information available to it and any formal complaints submitted by those involved.
