The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Twenty agitators were rounded up on charge of vandalising the Public Service Commission (PSC) office yesterday, as agitation deepens over the crisis-ridden 27th BSC examination continued.

Source said some 60 ex-candidates locked the main gate of the entrance and smashed windowpanes of the building at around 9:00am, leaving the office staff stranded inside the building. The demonstrators, mostly first round 27th BCS examination qualifiers, who failed to pass in the second-round results, held a rally outside the building

Witnesses and police said the qualifiers of the first round started assembling in front of the PSC office since morning and went on the rampage at about 10:00am, demanding that the BCS results be reversed and PSC Chairman Dr Saadat Hussain sacked.

The demonstrators stoned and damaged windowpanes of the PSC office, the sources said.

"At one stage of the demonstration, the protestors staged sit-in after locking the collapsible gate and confining its employees inside the building for almost four hours," says a spot account of the trouble.

On information, police arrived in the afternoon but failed to pacify the demonstrators. Then the riot police picked up twenty odd protestors onto the police van.

In protest against the high handedness of police, others courted arrest in a defiant move.

Among the arrested persons, five were relatives of some of those qualifiers and two others were unidentified. They were taken to Kafrul police station where a case was filed against them.

Shortly afterwards, the protestors staged a sit-in demonstration in front of the Teacher-Student Center (TSC) of Dhaka University demanding "unconditional release" of their colleagues and others by midnight Tuesday night, resignation of the PSC chairman and upholding the first-round results of the 27th BCS examination.

The left-out BCS examinees have been agitating for many days demanding that the results of the second-phase examination be scrapped. They had observed fast unto death at the Central Shaheed Minar last month.

They withdrew following the assurance of Education Adviser Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman on November 20 after a meeting with DU Vice-Chancellor Prof SMA Faiz, university teachers and the unsuccessful candidates at the VC's official residence.

Manjur Hossain, personal secretary to the PSC chairman, handed the reporters a handout that stated that a number of enraged ex-candidates, who failed to qualify in the 27th BCS retakes, filed a writ petition with the High Court against the government and the PSC.

The commission said it would not make any statement as the court was considering the petition. It also hoped that all involved with the examinations would not deliver any statements or comments on the sub judice matter.