An anxious father walks with his daughter on his lap to her school like hundreds of pedestrians who suffered on Wednesday for lack of transport amid a fresh blockade at Science Lab by students of seven Dhaka University-affiliated institutions demanding a separate university for them. — FE Photo by Asad-Uz-Zaman A double knock of street demonstrations Wednesday by seven-college students for a separate university for them and by jobseekers demanding service-age-limit raised to 35 years created nagging traffic impasse in Dhaka for hours.
Delivering an ultimatum for conceding to their demand by Saturday, the seven-college students affiliated with Dhaka University later postponed their agitations until then after six-hour road blockade.
The jobseekers, who appear to rejected government decision already extending government-job-entry age to 32 years, wouldn't give a letup in their move.
The university-seekers told reporters at the city's Science Lab crossing that their next programme would be announced at a press conference next Saturday. In this case, they can go for tough programmes like general strike.
They put forward an ultimatum for commencing the process of establishing a separate university for them by the cut-off time till Saturday.
"We'll launch a tough programme if our demand is not met by then," said one spokesperson for the students.
A programme of mass hunger strike can be given from Sunday, warned the students who have long carried out demonstrations for a separate university.
The protestors moved in a protest march from Dhaka College and took a position at the Science Lab intersection-one of the busiest crossroads in the capital city.
Their squatting on roads created traffic impasse adjacent to Neelkhet, Science Lab, Mirpur Road and Elephant Road in New Market area, Kataban Road, and Kazi Nazrul Avenue.
"Office-goers, students and other pedestrians were subjected to abject sufferings for the road siege," says a firsthand account of the holdup.
The students of the affiliated colleges announced an indefinite blockade programme on Monday, even though the Ministry of Education formed a reform commission to solve the problems of seven colleges.
The step from the interim government went unheeded, as the protesters seemingly pledged to settle the score while their movement is on stream.
Meanwhile, Education and Planning Adviser of the post-uprising interim government Prof Wahiduddin Mahmud in a statement requested the agitating students to be patient and return to the classroom instead of creating public suffering by blocking roads.
The problem all started a few years ago with an ill-advised decision to take seven colleges of Dhaka out of the purview of the National University and put them under Dhaka University jurisdiction, he said.
"There is no precedent anywhere to give an immediate decision to form a new university through blockades, agitations and ultimatums by students on the streets," he said.
In the other development, jobseekers who have been demanding the age limit in public service be raised to 35 years continued Wednesday their protests in the city after rejecting the government decision making it 32.
Club-wielding police, however, foiled their protest when they tried to move towards the education building in the city by applying preventive force.
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