Quota agitators face police wrath

Police have sued 700 to 800 unnamed people demonstrating for reform of the existing quota system in all public service recruitment.

In a case filed with Shahbagh Police Station on Wednesday night, they were accused of attempting to kill police officers and vandalising vehicles during a demonstration earlier in the day, said Sub-inspector Badrul Islam.

The case statement said the demonstrators staged a sit-in illegally by blocking a road adjacent to High Court area, causing public sufferings. When police fired teargas shells to disperse them, the agitators equipped with sticks vandalised several vehicles and hurled projectiles at police officers, injuring four of them, it said.

Meanwhile, the demonstrators at a press conference in front of Dhaka University Central Library yesterday, denied the allegations. Mohammad Rashed, a joint convenor of Bangladesh Sadharan Chhatra Adhikar Sangrakkhan Parishad, a platform of the agitators, said they took position in the HC area as per their prescheduled programme upon permission from the law enforcers.

“Police suddenly started charging batons on us and lobbed several tear gas canisters, leaving at least 15 of us injured,” said Rashed while reading out a statement. The allegations brought by Shahbagh police against them are totally false and baseless, he said. The platform threatened to go for tougher movements from Sunday if the case is not withdrawn by today. On Wednesday, police foiled a march of anti-quota campaigners consisting of university students and government job seekers in the HC area by using batons and teargas, leaving at least 15 of them injured.

The demonstrators have a five-point demand including reducing the proportion of quotas in government jobs,  recruitment of jobseekers to vacant posts on the basis of merit if eligible candidates are not found under quota, stopping of special recruitment tests for quota candidates, and ensuring of an unified age limit for all jobseekers.