Students demand 7-14 year jail terms for fascists, allies
Student activists, now in their 10th day of a mass sit-in at Dhaka University’s Raju Memorial Monument, demanded 7 to 14 years of rigorous imprisonment for ministers, advisers, and MPs tied to Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League regime.
Labelling them “fascists,” the Revolutionary Students’ Council unveiled a list targeting those they blame for the July massacre—many of whom fled amid surging public resistance.
Fazlur Rahman, the council’s member secretary and a DU student, announced the list as dusk settled over the campus.
“We’ve laid out five demands to uproot fascism. Today, per our third point, we’re naming the fascist ministers, advisers, and MPs from the Awami regime spanning 2009 to 2024,” he said, branding them “fascist terrorists.”
He called for putting the “radical fascists” behind bars for 14 years and seven years for “less controversial figures “simply for being part of Hasina’s cabinet.
The students’ demands go further—arrests, trials, and a total political blackout. “They should be barred from elections, public speaking, media, and social media,” Fazlur insisted. “Every minister, state minister, deputy minister, and adviser on this list must face justice.”
Md Shafiur Rahman of the National Revolutionary Council, alongside Hasan Mohammad Arif, Dr Mohammad Zahirul Islam, Ghalib Ihsan, Abdus Salam, and Mahmudul Hasan Faisal. The Revolutionary Students’ Council’s leadership—convener Abdul Wahed, assistant member secretary Ashraful Islam, and Md. Ariful Islam from the Bangladesh Islamic University branch, also spoke at the event.
The sit-in’s roots stretch back to February 13, when Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal leaders Md. Omar Faruk and Abu Sayeed launched a hunger strike. Momentum built on February 15 with the council’s participation, and on February 16, the family of Uttara martyr Rana Talukder joined, urging a push until the Awami League is banned. That day, the hunger strike morphed into the ongoing sit-in. By February 19, Abdul Wahed had sharpened their mission with a five-point agenda: ban the Awami League and its allies, seize their assets for the oppressed, prosecute Hasina and her associates as fascists, outlaw neo-fascist groups, and amend the constitution to bar fascist entities.
