The New Nation - Internet Edition

Chittagong Correspondent

Chittagong Medical College (CMC) has been declared closed for indefinite period after a series of pre-dawn fierce clashes reportedly between the activists of two student organisations JCD and Shibir.

Academic Council of the college in a pre-dawn emergency meeting yesterday finalised the decision and asked the students to vacate the dormitories. The meeting also postponed all ongoing examinations until next announcement.

Four dormitories barring the foreigner's one have already been vacated and students moved away to the safer places. The foreign students will also quit the dorm as quickly as possible.

Adequate armed security people backed by Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have been deployed in and around the college campus to avert clashes.

Earlier, the workers of Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), student wing of the BNP, and Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), locked into clashes over possession of seat at the main hostel.

The clash ensued at about 10:50 P.M. when the Jamaat-e-Islami-backed ICS workers together with their hired goons attacked some of the JCD workers who had allegedly been ousting a ICS worker from the dorm.

The attackers vandalised dozens of the JCD workers' rooms at different dorms and assaulted the students indiscriminately. They also torched the books and valuables at the rooms of JCD workers. More than 50 rooms owned by the workers of the warring groups were damaged during the clash that lasted until the intervention of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) at 2:40 A.M.

More than 20 students of both groups including some outsiders suffered wounds in the clashes. Supporters of the warring groups freely used lethal weapons. There were sounds of blank shots, witnesses claimed.

Security people nabbed three students from the spot while majority managed to escape police arrest.

The detainees were identified as Jahangir Alam, 5th year MBBS student, Nafiz Alam, 3rd year MBBS student and Paritosh Das, 5th year MBBS student of Barisal Medical College. Political affiliation of the detainees could not be known immediately.

Though the teachers of the Medical College rushed to the trouble spot shortly after the outbreak of the incident, they could not even enter the dorms because of the frenzy.

The frenzy also created panic in and around the hospital and the establishments nearby the college dorms. The round-the-clock pharmacies around the medical college had to pull their shutters down.

Ten of the 20 wounded students fled the trouble spot after taking first aid from the hospital while some went to nearby private clinics.

Three wounded students have been admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital. Police and college sources identified them as Delwar Hossain, Saiful Islam and Monirul Haq.

Senior police officials visited the trouble spot and later set together with the leaders of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) and the Islami Chhatra Shibir separately. Panchlaish Police recorded a case in connection with the incident. The detainees had been placed under police interrogation till the time of writing this report.