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Police have dispersed a protest march staged by students from the “adivasi” community – a collective term for several ethnic minority groups in Bangladesh – near the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Several students and a policeman have been injured in the incident.
The law enforcers blocked the march with barricades in front of the Shikkha Bhaban around 1:15pm on Thursday as the protesters were proceeding towards the Secretariat. When the protesters breached the barricades, police used water cannons and sound grenades in an attempt to stop them.
The protesters were not deterred and were proceeding towards the home ministry when police initiated a baton charge and dispersed the demonstration.
A witness said that a policeman was injured as sound grenades were being thrown.
“Members of a settler organisation named Students for Sovereignty attacked us yesterday, injuring us cruelly,” said one of the students. “Our demonstration today is to protest that incident. The police have attacked our peaceful protest and injured many of us.”
“The students were marching towards the Secretariat and the police dispersed them,” said Md Rezaul Hossain, chief of Shahbagh Police Station. “The students have now left.”
Several ethnic minority organisations under the banner of Agitated Adivasi Students marched from the Raju Memorial Sculpture at Dhaka University to protest the attack by the Students for Sovereignty on Wednesday.
The demonstration in front of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board offices was intended to protest the agency’s decision to remove a picture used on the back cover on the Bengali grammar and composition textbook for ninth and tenth graders.
The artwork depicted a tree with five leaves, each inscribed with a term for a religious or ethnic community in Bangladesh - Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, and “adivasi”. “Tearing leaves is prohibited” was written next to the picture.
The picture was removed from the online version of the book after members of the “Students of Sovereignty”, an organisation of Bengalis living in the hill areas, surrounded the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, or NCTB, premises on Jan 12.
When the Agitated Adivasi Students announced their protest, the Students for Sovereignty announced a counter-protest.
The two sides confronted each other in front of the NCTB Building on Wednesday. Though police tried to separate the two sides, witnesses say the Adivasi student group was attacked by protesters from the other side.
Several people were reported injured.
Alik Mro, an organiser for the Agitated Adivasi Students, told bdnews24.com, "Students from Students for Sovereignty attacked us. Eleven people were injured."
But Students for Sovereignty Convenor Muhammad Ziaul Haque Zia told bdnews24.com, "Fourteen students from the Students for Sovereignty were injured in an attack by the tribals."