***Campus terrorism has reached a point where we can hang fire only at our own peril It is no longer an intan-gible worry of a clique of nostradamie intelligentsia. It is the opinion of the general people.***

AFTER one of those eminently fragile china lulls. Dhaka University campus has once again entered the eye of storm. A brief spell of fatal militancy followed by a prolonged dysfunctionaf silence. And although the warring groups — opposition BNP’s JCD (Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal) and BCL (Bangladesh Chhatra League), student front of the ruling Awami League, are reported to nave agreed upon yet another VC-brokered truce after Intense negotiations, fears of guns gumming up the works loom very large.

Not that this particular occasion of campus warming was without its share of casualties. Partha Pratim Acharya, a BCL leader and a student of the department of Mass Communication and Journalism was killed on April 23 when a shot fired from a JCD stronghold on a bellicose BCL procession pierced the newly married sad case of remarkable and rueful coincidence. Partha died on Thursday, the day which according to the claim of a research piece of a national daily, saw most of the 62 instances of campus killing so far since independence.

Alarmingly. Dhaka University is Inexorably marching to a situation where one is likely to hear more of incidents like this. Many feel and not without reasons, student politics Is to blame for this all-pervasive degeneracy. Few would doubt student politics today stands for a crude motif of symbiotic relationship. Political leaders are using students' shoulders to aim at their targets or as President Shahabuddin Ahmed would describe, using the students as pawns on tne chess board.

Stripped of idealism, commitment and 'education', student community today is a factious farrago willing to dance to

any tune of the power hungry unscrupulous political bosses. Capturing halls of residence has become a trial of strength for the front enjoying the blessings of the party in power. When BNP was in power. JCD was in control of most of the halls. With the return of AL. BCL has turned the tables on its younger but more powerful rival. With police sticking to its traditional way of shielding the pro government group, BCL has driven JCD activists out of the campus and are currently enjoying absolute supremacy.

But supremacy for what? For all practical purposes, it is not a victory for either BCL or JCD. rather it is a matter of one reign of terrorism being replaced by the other: one group of tiiasiaans or erimtuirts T9lnnC ' ‘dWfffver t Thht there

is little or no element of party spirit or camaraderie in these dorm capturing battles' became evident in what happened following Partha Pratim Acharya's death. A BCL activist was actually punished by his own party cadres for attending a condolence meeting on Partha! No wonder it seemed to newsmen covering the incident that there was an air of celebration (possibly from the delight of stealing a march on the rivals with the corpse) than grief over apremature death.

This continued brutalisation of the student community and the desecration of the campus has led to the increasingly audible suggestion, almost picking the decibel of a demand now that student politics be banned from the educational institutions. Because it is clear the political parties will never gather the courage or the appreciation of country's interest to dissociate themselves from

their student fronts. To the confirmation of what most feel President Shahabuddin Ahmed has categorically said that campus violence will never end. for that matter normalcy will never be restored in educational institutions unless this nexus between parties and student fronts is snapped. Things have been on course of a rising crescendo since then. Because President's last pronouncement on the issue during the convocation ceremony at Shahjalal University has been followed by a significant statement by the Prime Minister who not only called for consensus among parties to ban student politics but also proposed to give a shoot at sight order against terrori^ts^n campus.

considerable furore. Senior BNP leader Badruddoza Chowdhury said that student politics can't be banned because that will be tantamount to dishonouring its glorious legacy. Perhaps nobody knows it better than Mr. Chowdhury that there is very little realistic and neutral relevance of what he or his party is saying to defend student politics. Actually the rationale lies the other way round. Because student politics has dissipated into petty contest for power and threatens to smear all the glorious gains of the past, that it should De put under the lid for the time being.

Actually the shoe pinches elsewhere. The BNP cannot afford a ban on student politics. Ever since late President Ziaur Rahman won over the student community with his brand of nationalism and get smart' philosophy, students have remained the livewlre of BNP's

politics. But if Chowdhury's remark does not do any favour to our optimism, one can't help saying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's proposal was not emblematic of political maturity either. She sounded like a cheesed off guardian who has lost control over her intractable children. Indeed despite her repeated assertion of neutral enforcement of law, Sheikh Hasina has given every indication of being unable to control her party's student front. It Is natural at a time when BCL ascendancy is on the rise as its 'absolute control' over the Dhaka University dormitories would show, opposition would find it difficult to accept her plea for a ban on student politics as a veiy honest

nave given little thought to the legal, social and political implication of a shoot at sight proposal and quite unnecessarily allowed herself to be mired

in misinterpretation and propaganda.

It is important that no unnecessary. energy sapping destructive controversy is ouilt around the issue so that an excuse can be made to put the problem on the backburner. The general students who bear the brunt of frequent campus violence and unscheduled holidays most seem to favour a blanket ban on student politics. A recent survey conducted by The Daily Star showed 64 per cent of the university students feel politics should go from the campus. Their teachers in majority however do not seem to share the view. Only 16 per cent of the educators backed a moratorium. No wonder again. More than seventy per cent teachers

with teachers being involved in politics. But in a situation like this where myopia and parti-sanism obliterate vision and neutrality it makes matters all

he more complicated. It may not have any necessary link with the general slide in the standard of education and the moral erosion afflicting the student community but the truth is. most, if not all. teachers are just not prepared to pay for upholding the high moral standard which sets them apart from the rest in the society.

Campus terrorism has reached a point where we can hang fire only at our own peril. It is no longer an intangible worry of a clique of nos-tradamic intelligentsia. It is the opinion of the general people. Ine heads of the state and government have given their moral sanction to do whatever it takes to extirpate violence from the campus. But a lot remains to be done to put the fight on the wheels. And the onus lies with the ruling party. There is not only the problem of the opposition not responding to its call the’Ttiff challenge of overcoming the insidious intent within the party.

Will the desire to uproot campus violence overcome so many odds?