Rajshahi University - Incidents and Controversies

Incidents and Controversies

During the 1980s, the four-year honors course took as long as eight years due to the session backlogs, resulting mainly from conflicts between factions of political groups. Since early 1990s, student politics has been comparatively calmer, with student body elections not being held for more than a decade. The student groups have been demanding elections whereas others feel student politics should be banned.

In late 2004 and early 2005, two professors of Rajshahi University got assassinated within three months: professor Yunus from the economics department in December 2004 and professor Taher from the geology and mining department in February 2005. Both murders were suspected to be driven by political motivations. A controversy over the hiring of over 500 new employees broke around the same time; detractors suggested that they were hired illegally, either in return for money or because of political reasons. Since the new millennium, much attention has been focused on politics among university teaching staff. Observers have claimed that the teaching staff have been thoroughly polarised according to party lines in national politics. In 2005, a professor of the university was arrested for links with the Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh.

In August 2007, six detained professors of the university were temporarily suspended for their involvement in organizing protests for restoring that violated Emergency Power Rules, though they were discharged later from allegations and returned to the university with proper honour.