Drug addiction rampant on DU campus
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Belal Hossain
Drug addiction has alarmingly increased on Dhaka University campus recently under the very nose of the administration.
A large number of DU students along with outsiders converge at several places in and around the campus in groups every evening to take drugs and also motivate others to join them.
Sources said the habitual drug addicts have selected some sites as their safe dens to have various intoxicating items including hemp, Phensidyl and heroin.
The prime drug spots on the university campus include the areas behind DU central library and the playhouse, the abandoned swimming pool inside the TSC, the areas in front of DU medical centre, Amar Ekushey Hall and Shahidullah Hall, the toilets of Arts Building, Haji Muhsin and Zahurul Haque Hall playgrounds and the roofs of all the 13 halls for male students.
The Zahurul Haque Hall authorities caught a second-year student of Philosophy Department red-handed while he was taking an injection of drug by pushing a syringe in his body himself May 31 and expelled him from the hall for two years.
Later, the hall Provost Zahidul Islam handed him over to his guardians and advised them to admit him to a drug rehabilitation centre.
The same incident also took place at Amar Ekushey Hall a few weeks back.
University medical centre sources claimed that more than thirty per cent students of DU are presently addicted to drugs and are going astray, thus posing a great threat to others.
"I get a pile of 40 to 50 empty bottles of Phensidyl when I go to sweep the marginal areas of the deserted swimming pool three days in a week", TSC sweeper Joynal Hossain said.
When contacted, DU Proctor AK Firoz Ahmad told the FE that the law enforcing agencies working in the campus have been asked to closely watch the area and detain the drug fiends if they observe such malpractice among the students.
He, however, stressed for concerted efforts of the teachers, students and police personnel to prevent the drug addicts as well as to create awareness among the students of the ill effects of drug abuse.
Drug addiction has alarmingly increased on Dhaka University campus recently under the very nose of the administration.
A large number of DU students along with outsiders converge at several places in and around the campus in groups every evening to take drugs and also motivate others to join them.
Sources said the habitual drug addicts have selected some sites as their safe dens to have various intoxicating items including hemp, Phensidyl and heroin.
The prime drug spots on the university campus include the areas behind DU central library and the playhouse, the abandoned swimming pool inside the TSC, the areas in front of DU medical centre, Amar Ekushey Hall and Shahidullah Hall, the toilets of Arts Building, Haji Muhsin and Zahurul Haque Hall playgrounds and the roofs of all the 13 halls for male students.
The Zahurul Haque Hall authorities caught a second-year student of Philosophy Department red-handed while he was taking an injection of drug by pushing a syringe in his body himself May 31 and expelled him from the hall for two years.
Later, the hall Provost Zahidul Islam handed him over to his guardians and advised them to admit him to a drug rehabilitation centre.
The same incident also took place at Amar Ekushey Hall a few weeks back.
University medical centre sources claimed that more than thirty per cent students of DU are presently addicted to drugs and are going astray, thus posing a great threat to others.
"I get a pile of 40 to 50 empty bottles of Phensidyl when I go to sweep the marginal areas of the deserted swimming pool three days in a week", TSC sweeper Joynal Hossain said.
When contacted, DU Proctor AK Firoz Ahmad told the FE that the law enforcing agencies working in the campus have been asked to closely watch the area and detain the drug fiends if they observe such malpractice among the students.
He, however, stressed for concerted efforts of the teachers, students and police personnel to prevent the drug addicts as well as to create awareness among the students of the ill effects of drug abuse.