Bomb attack on teachers\\\' bus

At a time when Chittagong University (CU) was giving the impression that it has almost come out of the long shadow of political vendetta, the violence unleashed on a bus carrying its teachers shatters any such belief. Accusing fingers have been pointed at a particular student organisation to which goes the credit of introducing the brutal practice of slitting tendons of opponent student activists. This student outfit moreover earned the dubious distinction of turning the CU into a militant bastion. Powerful but insane, the followers of this organisation had no qualms about physically assaulting, first time in the country's history, female teachers on the campus in broad daylight. So this latest attack on teachers' bus on September 4 last is not without precedence.

This is a sequel to the clash on August 24 last between two rival student organisations -one of them being the student wing of the ruling party and the other an outfit that has dominated there for long and spawned unrelenting brutality. Following police raid on a hall, a strike was called on August 31 and bombs were hurled on a shuttle train on its way to the university the next day.

Clearly, the culture of dormitory capture in this country is an entrenched one. A student organisation in particular is not ready to draw the line. It has taken the fight to teachers who are not apparently a party to the feud. Well, some teachers may have sympathy for certain student organisation but that in no way should draw the wrath of any disgruntled student group. Recently, a student of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) at Sylhet attacked a teacher of his faculty with a sharp weapon and left the latter severely wounded. Initial report says it might be a psychic case.

In the attack on trains or teachers' bus, there is no scope of giving any such benefit of doubt. These are pre-planned attacks. It defies human rationality that students in a body can target a train carrying fellow students many of whom may be without any political affiliation. When bombs are hurled and guns fired indiscriminately at a moving train or vehicle with unsuspecting students and teachers on board, the target is not specific. The intention is to claim victims, no matter who they are, so that others panic and refrain from attending classes.

This is criminal reasoning at its most macabre. And none other than a group of so-called students studying at one of the highest seats of learning is committing such a mass crime. If this is what higher education teaches, let there be a firm assertion, this country needs no such education. No civilised community should tolerate such gang violence, least of all on teachers who impart lessons in classes to the perpetrators. This land has the long tradition of fostering a healthy relationship between teachers and students. The latter have revered the former because it is the teachers who have tended them with love and care.

Now values are falling apart like nine pins. If this is no decadence, what is? They say the bus carrying teachers was without police escort. How ludicrous? If students target their teachers, is police escort of any use? Something has gone terribly wrong for this society. Now

the need is to identify what this wrong is and then set about

remedying it.