Students protest arson attack on schools

Our Correspondent

CHITTAGONG, Jan 17: School and college students today protested torching of academic institutions across the country during the recent political programmes by the BNP-led 18-party alliance.

Several hundred children from primary schools, high schools and colleges staged demonstration in front of Chittagong Press Club Friday afternoon.

The demonstration was organised by a cultural organisation Khelaghar, Chittagong city unit.

They formed a human chain with banners demanding immediate arrest of the culprits who set hundreds of academic institutions on fire during the recent opposition sponsored road blockade.

Khelaghar city unit president AQM Sirajul Islam presided over the protest rally while journalist M Nasirul Huq, teachers' association leader Anchal Chowdhury, Poet Rashed Hassan and Advocate Ashok Das addressed it.

"The defeated forces of War of Liberation in 1971 have burnt schools as they did it 42 years back. They must be brought to book and given exemplary punishment," the speakers said in the rally. Later, they paraded the city streets.