The agitating students again blocked the Shahbag intersection of the capital demanding the reinstatement of the circular issued by the government in 2018 canceling the quota system in government jobs.
On Wednesday (July 3) around 2.30 pm, the students organized a procession in front of the central library of DU from different halls of the university under the banner of 'anti-discrimination student movement' and started the march from there.
Around 3 o'clock, the procession passed through various roads of the campus and came to Shahbagh via Doyal Chatwar and came to a halt. Later, the students took a position on the road at Shahbag intersection. At that time, the members of the law and order forces stopped them, but they took a position in Shahbagh. This has caused traffic congestion in the surrounding area. As a result, the passengers have suffered greatly.
At that time, the students said, "Injustice will be swept away in a flood of blood, if I have given blood, I will give more blood", "The students have woken up, the student society has woken up", "Quota or merit, merit", " Send message in the whole Bengal, bury the quota system". Bury. Shahbagh intersection is full of slogans.
It is known that before the holy Eid-ul-Azha on June 5, the High Court declared invalid the circular for the cancellation of freedom fighter quota in the case of direct recruitment (grades 9 to 13) in government offices, autonomous and semi-autonomous institutions and various corporations. From that day, a large number of students started protesting in Dhaka University. In this situation, the state applied to the Appellate Division seeking suspension of the court's decision. A full bench of the Appellate Division fixed July 4 for hearing the petition.
Nahid Islam, a student of Sociology Department of Dhaka University, one of the organizers of the recent quota reform movement, said that their demand is mainly to redistribute or reform the quota by setting up a commission with a maximum quota of 10 percent in all grades subject to the upholding of the 2018 circular; Stopping the possibility of using quota facility multiple times in the job examination and appointing the vacant posts on the basis of merit if qualified candidates are not found in the quota and taking effective measures to ensure a corruption-free, impartial and merit-based bureaucracy.
Till 2018, there was a total of 56 percent quota in government jobs in Bangladesh. That year, protests started in various educational institutions of the country, including Dhaka University, demanding quota reform. At that time, the protesting students complained of attack by law and order forces including Chhatra League.
On October 4 of that year, the Ministry of Public Administration issued a circular on the cancellation of quota. Later in 2021, the children of freedom fighters filed a writ challenging the part of the freedom fighter quota cancellation of that circular.