TDS Desk:

Professor Dr Muhammad Zafar Iqbal has been declared a persona non grata by the anti-quota protesters at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) in Sylhet.

The students demanding quota reform in government jobs announced this at Goalchattar of the university around 2:30pm on Wednesday.

Asadullah Al Galib, Coordinator of Anti-Discriminatory Movement at SUST, said anyone who will oppose their movement will be declared unwanted on the campus. Zafar Iqbal opposed the movement by calling the students ‘Rajakar’. “So, we are declaring him persona non grata.”

Zafar Iqbal is a former teacher of Computer Science and Engineering department at SUST.

Meanwhile, several well-known online bookshops and book-related groups banned educationist and litterateur Dr Zafar Iqbal as he termed the quota protestors as ‘Razakars’ in a handwritten statement on July 16.

The handwritten statement by the writer was widely shared on Facebook, sparking more discussion and debate among supporters and participants in the ongoing quota reform movement.

“Dhaka University is my university, my beloved university. But I think I will never want to go to this university again. Whenever I see the students, I will think, perhaps they are ‘razakar’. And as long as I live, I do not want to see the face of any razakar. We only have one life, why should I have to see razakars again in this life?” – the litterateur stated via that handwritten note.

The images of his statement started floating across social media platforms on Thursday night. Shortly after that, netizens and supporters of the quota reform protest started expressing their disappointment over his statement.

Several renowned and popular book related groups on Facebook such as BoiPoka (Largest facebook based book readers group in Bangladesh with 603.5k members), Boipokader addakhana (2nd largest group, 402k members), and several other groups posted that from now on, they ban Dr Zafar Iqbal and will not allow or promote any of his literary works or posts related to his literary creations.

A number of prominent online bookshops including Books of Bengal (a Dhaka and Kolkata based online bookshop), Universal Book Shop, Bangla Bazar Books, Bookshop BD, Book Fiesta, Grontho Bazar and others have posted that from now on, they will not sell any of Dr Zafar Iqbal’s books in their platforms.

Rokomari Dot Com, the country’s largest online bookshop, however, not posted any public statement but removed more than 230+ of his published books from its website, which are not available to purchase since Wednesday morning.

The younger brother of Bangladesh’s most popular author Humayun Ahmed and the elder brother of renowned cartoonist-satirist Ahsan Habib, Dr Muhammed Zafar Iqbal gained prominence for his literary works including books-turned children films such as ‘Dipu Number 2’, ‘Amar Bondhu Rashed’ and more.