Ansar men flee after clashes with students
FE REPORT | Monday, 26 August 2024
Clashes took place between Ansar men rallying to voice their demand and quota movement students before the former fled at around 9:00 pm on Sunday in the city.
Earlier a piece of news spread that agitating Ansar and VDP men reportedly besieged Information Adviser Nahid Islam and some other coordinators of the quota reform movement at the Secretariat, the government's administrative headquarters.
Following the news, students from different halls of Dhaka University gathered at the Raju Sculpture of TSC and finally marched towards the Secretariat to confront them. They termed the agitating Ansar members as the 'agents of dictatorship'.
Later the Ansar and VDP men, agitating in front of the Secretariat, fled the spot at one stage of clashes with the students. A dozen of students and Ansar men were injured in the clashes.
Earlier, the agitating members of the Bangladesh Ansar called off their demonstration programme on Sunday as Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Md Jahangir Alam assured them of meeting their demands.
A decision has initially been taken to scrap the 'rest policy' in Ansar VDP job, he said.
"From now on, there will be no rest policy," the adviser said while addressing journalists following a meeting with Ansar representatives at his secretariat office on Sunday.
Information and Broadcasting Adviser Nahid Islam, Youth and Sports Adviser Asif Mahmud Sajeeb Bhuiyan, Ansar VDP Director General Major General Abdul Motaleb Sazzad Mahmud, Ansar representatives and other officials were present during the briefing.
A committee will be formed to asses all the demands raised by the Ansar, the home affairs adviser said.
"The committee will review everything and send a report to us. We'll take a decision based on that report," he said.
Headed by the Ansar DG, the seven-member committee will submit a report within seven working days.
Regarding the rest policy, Jahangir said Ansar members are obligated to take rest for six months after every three years of their service.
The process is being worked on how to regularise their employment by abolishing this practice from the recruitment rules.
Nahid said that a decision will be taken after analysing the demands and the discriminations.
"We'll discuss the problems of Ansar brothers and arrive at a logical solution. However, initially it has been decided to cancel their rest policy," he said.
Nasim Mia, a coordinator of the Ansar, "As we called off the agitation programme, Ansar members will go back to their work."
Members of Bangladesh Ansar VDP had been staging a demonstration for four days to press home their demand for nationalisation of their job.
Like the previous days, Ansar members staged a demonstration in front of the secretariat to meet their demands.
At one stage of their agitation, a group of Ansar members stormed into the secretariat at around 1:00pm, defying law and order.
Several thousands of Ansar members took positions on the streets around the secretariat, disrupting traffic.