BCL's farcical probe report

RULING AL's student front BCL has come up with a probe report, in which it has justified, for what it said, the use of arms in self-defence by its members in the violence that took place at Rajshahi University (RU) campus on February 2. One is appalled at the very suggestion made in the report justifying the use of arms by students. How can a student body worth its name brazenly come out in open support of an action that amounts to serious crime? Which law of the land allows students, whose main task is to study and gather knowledge, to carry arms and that, too, to use against other students?
In the present case the BCL has tried to be at once the judge, jury and executioner. It's as mind-boggling as it is uncalled-for.
But, however grave the situation might have been as a result of the involvement of Shibir in the violence, BCL cannot take law into its own hands, far less justify the use of arms even in self-defence. It is only the law-enforcers who can possess arms to protect citizens under the law. If the BCL members were really endangered, they should have sought the protection of police, who were around during the incident.
It may be recalled that media reports supported by pictures of BCL cadres firing shots from firearms alongside police on students agitating against tuition fee hike and running of evening masters course by RU authority had drawn widespread public criticism of the incident. Though BCL expelled two of its RU unit members after that incident, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on February 4 said in parliament that the armed cadres in the photograph were not BCL members and that everybody had the right to defend himself. Small wonder, BCL itself is now speaking for armed self-defence.
But this kind of self-serving argument is not just untenable, it is also counterproductive. It sends a very wrong signal about the rule of law.