Corruption, deception, conspiracy and forgery are being applied zealously by a section of people - both officials and student leaders - in the major educational institutions of the country to make extra money. Two such cases, amongst many others remaining undetected, have been discovered on the same day last Wednesday (April 08, 2015) by the authorities of the country's two top universities - one at the University of Dhaka (DU) and the other at the Jahangirnagar University (JNU).
At the DU, a student leader of the university was arrested by the police for allegedly forging Vice-Chancellor Prof. AAMS Arefin Siddique's signature to ensure the admission of two youngsters to the DU-affiliated Laboratory School for money.
Another case of arranging a freedom fighter's fake certificate by two student leaders in collaboration with the admission officials to admit a female student at the university's archeology department has been unearthed. Insiders, however, say, it's no a big deal. The practice of admitting students under shoddy deals are common in most institutions. Over time, a thriving nexus between a section of unscrupulous officials connected with admission and some selected students has been developed largely because of negligence or indifference or both of the concerned authorities.
The case of enrolling two young students at the Laboratory School appears relatively simpler given the fact that the culprit only has to forge the VC's signature. In this case, Debashis Shikdar Siddhartha, who happened to be Dhaka University Students Affairs Secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), has allegedly done it. He was arrested by the Shahbagh police but Muhith and Daud - also DU students, who are said to be his collaborators have managed to flee. Police said they would be arrested soon.
Shahbagh Police Sub-inspector Jahangir Alam said, Devashis allegedly made a deal with the parents of the two children that he would ensure their admission in class one if they pay Tk 80,000.
COMPLICATED ONE: The other case is not so simple one. The allegation is that the female second year student Umme Sultana got admitted with a fake certificate of a freedom fighter said to be her father and when she failed to submit related papers on demand, the JNU authorities have instituted an inquiry into the allegation.
The story is complicated and interesting. A newspaper report says Umme Sultana has admitted that she had paid a sum of Tk 3,90,000 to admission official Billal Hossain through two of her fellow students - Alita Ahmed and Reazul Islam - both are to move into their third year class soon.
According to Sultana's statement, she knew nothing about how the fake certificate was procured. Obviously, she could not provide a copy of the Red Book of listing of freedom fighters. So an inquiry was instituted. However, it is said that if the authorities do not strictly follow up the allegation and nab the three persons named by Umme Sultana, the real culprit would manage to escape as it happened in many other cases over the years.
ELECTION CODE VIOLATION: While many of the opposition BNP candidates are on the run as police are raiding their homes to arrest or frighten them and thereby incapacitating them to openly seek votes from people, the Election Commission (EC) overlooks the code of conduct violations, as reported by the media. The EC has, however, been thrown off balance with the returning officer in Chittagong accusing public works minister Mosharraf Hossain, state minister for land Saifuzzaman Chowdhury and state minister for Chittagong Hill Tracts Bir Bahadur of violating the code of conduct. But the EC is apparently unwilling to take action against them.
Election Commissioner Shah Nawaz told newsmen in Dhaka afterwards: "the returning officer himself investigated the incident and found that the ministers were present there but did not participate in election campaign…. So it does not directly violate the code of conduct."
The EC then decided to send separate letters to the Cabinet Division and the Speaker of Parliament requesting them to take necessary steps so that the ministers and other key persons do not join the electoral campaign. This should have been done at the beginning.
According to electoral code of conduct, parliament speaker, deputy speaker, chief whip, whips, ministers, state ministers and persons of equivalent ranks or those enjoying the same government facilities cannot take part in polls campaigns and activities on any candidate's behalf.
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