Dhaka, Bangladesh – Since early August, Fahmi*, 24, who was a dominant determine on the sprawling campus of Dhaka College in Bangladesh’s capital, has been in hiding.
Fahmi was a member of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the coed wing of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) occasion that dominated over the South Asian nation with an iron fist for greater than 15 years earlier than she was ousted and compelled to flee to neighbouring India following a student-led motion in August.
On Wednesday, Bangladesh’s interim authorities, led by its solely Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, declared the BCL a “terrorist organisation” and banned it. The Ministry of Dwelling Affairs mentioned the BCL had a historical past of significant misconduct over the previous 15 years, together with violence, harassment and exploitation of public sources.
“Not way back, I used to be a voice of authority right here,” Fahmi, an undergraduate scholar of utilized chemistry, advised Al Jazeera. “Now, I’m operating round like a fugitive with no possible future.”
Fahmi’s story mirrors that of hundreds of scholars previously affiliated with the AL, whose once-powerful maintain over Bangladesh’s campuses collapsed in a single day. The previous powerbrokers on campuses and the AL’s muscle on the streets now face eviction, retribution and even imprisonment for his or her position in attempting to suppress the favored revolt in opposition to Hasina and for the rights violations they allegedly dedicated whereas she was in energy.
Fahmi maintains he didn’t straight take part within the authorities’s lethal crackdown in opposition to folks in the course of the anti-Hasina demonstrations. “My sisters have been a part of the protests,” he mentioned. “I additionally believed within the trigger however was trapped by occasion obligations.”
The lethal protests started in July after faculty college students demanded the abolition of a controversial reservation system in authorities jobs that they mentioned favoured supporters of the governing occasion. Although Bangladesh’s prime court docket scrapped the quota, the protests quickly morphed right into a wider name for the elimination of Hasina’s “autocratic” regime, marked by allegations of widespread rights violations.
The federal government’s response was one of many bloodiest chapters in Bangladesh’s historical past as safety forces beat the protesters, and fired tear gasoline and reside ammunition on peaceable demonstrators, killing greater than 1,000 folks in three weeks and arresting hundreds of others.
On August 5, as defiant Bangladeshis stormed distinguished authorities buildings, together with Hasina’s residence and the parliament, the 77-year-old prime minister fled the nation in a navy helicopter and sought refuge in New Delhi.
The violence, nonetheless, didn’t finish with Hasina’s fall. The previous perpetrators of state atrocities grew to become the brand new targets as lots of of AL politicians and members, together with college students, have been attacked or killed. Many went into hiding or have been detained whereas trying to flee.
Fahmi mentioned the anti-Hasina protesters set hearth to his household’s house and chilly storage enterprise in Noakhali district, 173km (107 miles) from Dhaka. “They threatened to make my youthful brother disappear if he didn’t disclose my whereabouts,” he mentioned. To date, they haven’t acted on the menace, mentioned Fahmi, although his youthful brother has been bullied on the madrasa [a Muslim educational institution] the place he research.
Reflecting on his BCL involvement, Fahmi admitted, “I used to be scholar who cared little for politics, however at Dhaka College, corridor politics was unavoidable. You both joined, otherwise you suffered.” He admitted that being a BCL chief would enhance his prospects of touchdown a authorities job – an interesting incentive in a shrinking job market – particularly since his obligations in direction of his mom, two single sisters, and youthful brother grew after his father’s loss of life two years in the past.
However his loyalty to the Awami League additionally meant he was not all the time there for his household after they wanted him.
On August 15, 2022 – only a day after his father’s passing – he left his grieving household in Noakhali to attend an occasion in Dhaka marking the anniversary of the loss of life of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father and the chief of Bangladesh’s motion for independence from Pakistan.
“Wanting again, I see I prioritised the occasion’s approval over supporting my household,” Fahmi mentioned with remorse.
Now, whereas his erstwhile chief Hasina is protected in India, he faces the fixed menace of violence or arrest, a state of affairs that he says made him really feel that he has been deserted by the occasion he as soon as represented and the college he’s a scholar of.
“The salam [peace] I supplied and hours I invested buttering up our leaders and arranging occasion rallies … now appear meaningless,” he mentioned bitterly. “The occasion used us as its political pawns however supplied no safety after we wanted it most. The regime fell all of the sudden; saving myself from the offended mob was the toughest factor I ever confronted that night. But, neither prime occasion leaders nor BCL’s scholar leaders have checked on me.”
Together with his remaining yr exams underneath means, he can’t attend lessons or full his diploma. “I wished to affix the civil service and serve the nation,” he mentioned. “However stepping on campus might result in my arrest on doubtful expenses – or worse, I might be overwhelmed to loss of life.”
1000’s in limbo
Fahmi’s state of affairs is way from distinctive. The Awami League estimates that no less than 50,000 of its scholar associates throughout the nation at the moment are in limbo, struggling to proceed their tertiary training.
Shahreen Ariana, a BCL chief from Rajshahi College, was arrested on October 18 on “solid expenses,” in accordance with her household. She was detained whereas attempting to sit down for a term-final examination. Saikat Raihan, one other BCL chief at Rajshahi College, was arrested on the identical day.
The district police, nonetheless, claimed that each confronted prior circumstances, however refused to offer paperwork to again their declare. In the meantime, the college’s proctor, Mahbubur Rahman, advised Al Jazeera, “Different college students refused to sit down with any BCL chief in the course of the examination.” To forestall any “mob justice,” Ariana and Raihan have been handed over to the police. “We needed to intervene,” he mentioned. “In any other case, issues might have gotten worse.”
On October 25, two extra BCL leaders — Abul Hasan Saidi, a finance scholar and Kazi Shihab Uddin Taimur, an anthropology scholar — have been arrested whereas showing for exams at Dhaka College. “There have been current circumstances in opposition to the 2 college students, they usually have been arrested accordingly,” mentioned college Proctor Saifuddin Ahmed.
The wave of violence in opposition to Awami League-affiliated college students has unfold throughout campuses. On the outskirts of the capital, former Jahangirnagar College BCL activist Shamim Ahmed was overwhelmed to loss of life on September 18, whereas Masud, one other BCL chief, was killed by a mob in Rajshahi on September 7.
“These are simply the reported circumstances,” says Redwanul Karim Sagor, who goes by the identify Sujon and was a senior BCL chief who’s now in hiding. Sujon, practically six toes tall, was carrying a crumpled black shirt and unpressed pants, his hair untrimmed. Throughout our interview, he repeatedly requested if anybody else knew concerning the assembly. “There have been extra killings, arrests and fabricated circumstances in opposition to us, usually in areas we’ve by no means even visited,” he mentioned.
The interim authorities that took over after Hasina fled, led by Nobel Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus, issued a gazette on October 23, formally banning the BCL underneath the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 – a regulation that was introduced, mockingly, by Hasina’s authorities quickly after it got here to energy in 2009.
This resolution got here after nationwide protests led by College students In opposition to Discrimination (SAD), the coed group that mobilised the scholars in opposition to the Hasina authorities in July, and different teams demanding BCL’s ban.
Abdul Hannan Masud, a founding member of SAD, who earlier demanded this ban, mentioned, “The Chhatra League can’t function in Bangladesh. All their operatives will likely be recognized nationwide and dropped at justice.”
In the meantime, police filed a significant case over the July 15 BCL-led assault on protesters, incriminating 391 people, together with then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and several other BCL leaders. It additionally names as much as 1,000 unidentified people.
Because the ban on the coed physique on October 23, officers within the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) confirmed to Al Jazeera the arrest of no less than 10 BCL leaders from the town. Greater than 100 scholar activists have been arrested from throughout the nation.
“Virtually all of those arrests are underneath circumstances filed over July protests,” mentioned a senior DMP official, in search of anonymity, “based mostly on no particular expenses however underneath suspicion, and largely due to their affiliation with Chhatra League.”
Amid this turbulent atmosphere, Sujon advised Al Jazeera he now lives in a secret location.
We met on October 21 in a small, rundown cafe manufactured from wooden and bamboo over a canal alongside a desolate highway, removed from any neighbourhood, the place passing vehicles would often cease. We sat at a nook bench underneath dim lighting as Sujon always shifted his gaze in direction of the window, his eyes betraying his nervousness, as he stored downing glasses of water.
At one level, two vehicles pulled up exterior, their occupants stopping briefly for water. As a broad-shouldered man stepped out, Sujon’s face tensed up, his voice stopping for a second earlier than he managed to proceed sharing his story.
“I grew up in a era that solely noticed Awami League in energy. Aligning with them was the one choice,” he mentioned.
Sujon was pursuing a bachelor’s diploma in physics at Rajshahi College and was one final-term examination away from commencement earlier than the August upheaval compelled him into hiding.
Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, a former minister in Hasina’s cupboard, now in exile in India, criticised the interim authorities for the insecurity confronted by BCL college students. “This authorities claims to be constructing a discrimination-free Bangladesh,” he advised Al Jazeera. “But it’s depriving hundreds of scholars of their proper to training.”
He argued that sidelining the BCL, the nation’s largest scholar organisation with an estimated 100,000 members, might have penalties for all of Bangladesh. “How can Dr Yunus hope to construct a greater future for Bangladesh whereas excluding such a big section of its youth?”
Chowdhury emphasised that his occasion stays loyal to its members. “When the time is correct, we’ll struggle for his or her rights,” he asserted, “and guarantee they’ll full their training with out worry.”
Azad Majumder, Muhammad Yunus’s deputy press secretary, advised Al Jazeera that “all people is free to affix common tutorial actions except there are any prison expenses in opposition to her or him”.
Nevertheless, when requested concerning the authorities’s measures to guard college students from mob violence or arbitrary arrests, he mentioned, “I’ve nothing so as to add.”
Rahman, the college proctor, careworn that the campus violence that was frequent when the BCL dominated shouldn’t be repeated in “new” Bangladesh. “Authorities purpose to make sure all college students graduate with out dealing with violence,” he acknowledged, noting that investigations are underneath option to determine the perpetrators of violence on the college’s campus from July 15 to August 5.
“Any college students discovered responsible will face disciplinary actions in accordance with the college’s code of conduct,” he added.
Reversal of fortunes
For greater than a decade, the BCL dominated campuses with an iron grip. The Chhatra Dal, the coed wing of the largest opposition occasion, the Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion, managed to keep up a presence however was usually on the defensive. In the meantime, the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the scholars’ physique of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Muslim occasion, was compelled underground.
Quite a few media studies over 16 years present college students being compelled out of campuses – tortured, and even gruesomely murdered – by BCL members on suspicion of ties to the Shibir, which in August this yr was banned by the Hasina authorities underneath the identical anti-terror regulation now used in opposition to the BCL.
The ban on the Shibir was lifted by the Yunus authorities. And now, the tables have turned on the BCL extra broadly, with opposition scholar wings reclaiming management throughout campuses.
“BCL created a system of recent slavery,” mentioned Abu Shadik, president of the Chhatra Shibir’s Dhaka College unit — the primary publicly declared Shibir committee in many years. “College students needed to align with BCL to safe dorms; dissenters confronted a dwelling inferno. Some joined for survival, others for private acquire.”
“All BCL operatives who repressed college students or joined the July violence should face justice. The frequent college students have rejected them from society,” he advised Al Jazeera. “Even those that didn’t assault however remained silent are culpable. To reconcile, they need to admit to BCL’s 16 years of brutality, the July ‘genocide,’ and search forgiveness. Solely then can reintegration be thought-about.”
In a separate dialog, Nahiduzzaman Shipon, basic secretary of the BNP’s Dhaka College unit, recalled the reign of violence on campus when the BCL dominated. “Awami League turned BCL right into a power to rig votes, suppress dissent, and bypass the regulation,” he acknowledged.
Shipon added that the BCL used sickles, machetes and firearms in opposition to their friends. “After 2009, many Chhatra Dal [BNP] members have been tortured and compelled off campuses, their training minimize brief.”
Whereas actual figures on BCL-linked killings are unavailable, the opposition estimates recommend that the toll runs into the lots of.
Nonetheless, Shipon insists, his occasion, the BNP, will not be advocating for vigilante justice in opposition to BCL members.
“Any scholar with out prison expenses is welcome again to campus, no matter their political affiliations,” he mentioned. “However those that used brutality as political enforcers should be held accountable underneath Bangladeshi regulation.”
A regulation that the occasion of scholars like Fahmi as soon as managed has now turned in opposition to them.
