Ten people were injured as police lobbed tear gas shells and charged baton to disperse engineering students near Hotel Intercontinental when they attempted to move towards the Chief Adviser’s residence to press home their three-point demand.
Students of Buet, Ruet, MIST and other engineering universities started to gather at Shahbagh intersection around 10 am as part of their scheduled ‘March to Dhaka’ programme, halting vehicular movement on roads in the adjacent areas.
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At one stage, when they tried to march towards Jamuna breaking the police barrier near Intercontinental hotel around 1:35 pm police used water cannons and charged batons to disperse them, said witnesses.
A chase and counter-chase took place when 10 people including two policemen were injured, reprots our correspondent from the spot.
Police also fired sound grenades to disperse the students.
Being obstructed, the students took position near Metro Rail Shahbagh Intersection.
Their demands are to enter the engineering 9th grade or assistant engineer or equivalent posts, candidates must pass a recruitment examination and hold at least a BSc degree. No promotion should be given through quotas nor should equivalent posts be created under different names for promotion.
The recruitment test for the technical 10th grade or Sub-Assistant Engineer or equivalent posts must be open to candidates with at least a diploma as well as those holding higher degrees (BSc) in the same discipline.
Legal action must be taken against those using the title of engineer without holding a BSc degree in engineering. Non-accredited BSc engineering courses must be brought under IEB-BAETE accreditation through the proper process.
Zahidul Haque, a student of Buet, said “Our clear demand is that an executive order should be issued to implement the three points demand and the criminals in the diploma who threatened to kill engineer Roknuzzaman must be immediately arrested and brought under law.”
Earlier, the Buet students blocked the road on Tuesday over the same demands.