Private universities must set up anti-extremism cells

Bangladesh’s higher education regulatory body, the University Grants Commission or UGC, has told all private universities in the country to form a ‘monitoring cell’ to create awareness among students “against terrorism, extremism and militancy”. The new units will have to send monthly monitoring reports to the education ministry and the UGC.

In a statement issued on 4 August, the UGC said it had ordered all private universities to report back the names and designation of the monitoring cell members to the commission.

The move to step up supervision of private institutions came after law enforcement authorities found some private university students had been involved in recent attacks by Islamist extremists in the country.

After the 1 July attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery, a café in the capital Dhaka, police revealed that one of the attackers, Rohan Imtiaz (20), was a student of the private BRAC University in Dhaka. Some 22 people including two policemen, nine Italians, seven Japanese, an Indian and an American were killed in the attack, for which Islamic State or ISIS claimed responsibility,

Another perpetrator, Nibras Islam (24), who was killed when security forces stormed the café, had studied at the private Monash University Malaysia until October 2015. He was also a North South University student in Dhaka.

The vice-chancellor of the private United International University, Professor Mohammad Rezwan Khan, told University World News: “Normally we have a monitoring cell to ensure law and order in the universities. Now as per UGC direction, we will form a new cell.”

He welcomed the government move. “This is a real problem for private universities and we have to work together to check militancy in private universities,” he said.

Surprise visits

The government held meetings with private universities on 17 July involving Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid and UGC Chairman Abdul Mannan, and police and top security officials.

Mannan said the UGC would set up a committee to make surprise visits to universities and report back to the education ministry and law enforcement agencies if it found proof of militant activity on campuses.

Mannan said the UGC had visited the private University of South Asia. Mannan said he told the university authorities “stern action” would be taken if they fail to follow government instructions.
Mannan also told local media that a UGC team had visited the North South University or NSU main campus after the 1 July attack and had found “books and other written materials of the banned militant outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir in the university library”.

NSU has been on the government’s radar since the brutal killing in February 2013 of a blogger, Rajib Haider, who was hacked to death. Seven NSU engineering students were arrested and brought to trial for the killing.

On 7 July an NSU student, Abir Rahman, was killed in a shootout with police at the Sholakia Eidgah prayer ground in Dhaka after he was involved in in a bomb attack on a congregation gathered for Eid festival prayers.

More recently, Md Sazzad Rouf (24), an alleged Islamic extremist who was killed in a police shootout on 28 July, was also an NSU student.

Another suspect in the 1 July café attack, Hasanat Reza Karim, was a teacher at NSU.

At present, 84 private universities are operating in Bangladesh. To tighten control, the UGC has also asked the government to amend the Private University Act 2010 to appoint observers to the boards of trustees of all private universities, to oversee university activities.

Despite repeated attempts University World News was unable to obtain a comment from North South University.