Leftist students of Jahangirnagar University took a two-day graffiti drawing programme on the campus for Saturday and Sunday protesting at lodging a case against two Chhatra Union leaders by the university administration.
They also protested at the issuance of the expulsion order against JU Chhatra Union president Amartya Roy and general secretary Anindya Ganguly for drawing an anti-rape graffiti allegedly defacing the portrait of the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on the campus.
As part of the programme, the protesters drew five graffiti on the walls of several academic buildings, cafeterias on the campus.
The graffiti depicted freedom of speech, freedom of movement, alleged autocratic behaviour of the university administration and the state, and others.
Sudipta Dey, general secretary of the JU-based cultural organisation ‘Film Movement’ said, ‘We want to provide a message through the programme to the administration that graffiti doesn’t reflect defamation. Graffiti is a medium of protest against wrongdoing.’
‘Filing a case against protesters for graffiti drawing is nothing but an autocratic behaviour of the university administration,’ he added.
Leaders and activists of the JU unit Chhatra Union, the Samajtantrik Chhatra Front, Film Movement, Jahangirnagar Cultural Alliance joined the protest programme.
The protesters vowed to continue their protest until the university administration withdrew the case and scrapped the expulsion order against the Chhatra Union leaders.
Earlier on Thursday, the JU administration filed a case with the Ashulia police station over ‘defaming’ Sheikh Mujib by overlapping a portrait of Mujib on a campus wall with an anti-rape graffiti.
The caricature portrayed a female figure, seven skulls scatters randomly beside her, a flag of Bangladesh, and an anti-rape slogan ‘freedom from rape and tyranny’.
The graffiti was drawn on February 8 as part of a series of protest against a rape incident on the campus by a Chhatra League leader, Mustafizur Rahman, a former student of the university, and his associates on February 3.
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