Staff Correspondent:

Police on Monday afternoon halted a march towards the Secretariat by mostly women students demanding the resignation of Home Adviser Lt Gen (Retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury.

Earlier, the protesters held a brief rally under the banner “Bangladesh Against Rape” at Central Shaheed Minar on Dhaka University campus.

At 2.30pm, the protesters started a march through TSC intersection and Doyel Chattar to reach the Secretariat. At 3pm, police blocked the march at Shikkha Bhaban.

Protests, mostly led by students, have been waging across the country demanding the resignation of the home adviser amid a sudden and dramatic surge in criminal incidents across the country including rapes, daytime robbery, and break-ins.

Students of Jahangirnagar University (JU) blockaded the Dhaka-Aricha highway for about half an hour on Monday noon to press home the same demand.

Women students also staged demonstrations in Netrokona and Chandpur. Protesters in both districts threatened to take “the law into their own hands,” if authorities fail to take adequate measures.

In Chandpur, hundreds of women students marched against a rise in rapes. Over the past 65 hours, 80 incidents of rapes occurred across the country, they said. The protesters alleged the Awami League, ousted from power in a mass uprising last year, is behind the rise in crimes, and claimed some government officials could also be involved in patronising criminals.

DHAKA-ARICHA BLOCKADE

The JU students of the university brought out a procession from Shaheed Minar Premises on the campus at noon and took to the street, disrupting vehicular movement.

Arifuzzaman Ujjal, student of 47th batch of the university, said “We can see that the law and order situation has completely collapsed across the country. Those actively participated in the July revolution came under attack. False cases are being filed in the name of revolutionaries in the name of Devil Hunt. There is no security in our lives. Incidents of murder, mugging and rape are happening horribly across the country.”

Rakib Hossain, another student of 49th batch of the Department of Chemistry, said the law and order situation in the country collapsed due to the negligence of the administration.