Jinnah images torn up at Ducsu archive, photo of Ghulam Azam beaten with shoes put on display

Leaders and activists of the Students' Federation of Bangladesh’s Dhaka University unit joined a protest this afternoon at the Ducsu archive, where a student had earlier torn up photographs of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, that were on display.

The protest came a day after the renovated archive reopened without any prominent photograph of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

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Around 2:00pm today, Muhammad Abu Tayab (Habilder), a fourth-year student of the Department of Urdu from the 2001-02 session and the oldest candidate in the last Ducsu election, entered the archive and smashed a frame containing a photograph of Jinnah. He then removed the photograph from the frame and tore it up.

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“We have not forgotten 1971 or the Language Movement,” Tayab said, asking why “this villain’s” photograph should remain at Ducsu and whether the Ducsu manifesto had promised to “make Jinnah a hero”.

Later, Students' Federation leaders and activists handed Tayab a Dawn newspaper clipping featuring Jinnah, which he also tore up.

Students’ Federation leader Arko Barua said they had damaged the photographs for the same reason Ducsu Liberation War and Democratic Movement Affairs Secretary Fatima Tasnim Zuma had cited for displaying them -- because they “wanted to”.

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The federation later put up in the archive a photograph showing convicted 1971 war criminal and former Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Ghulam Azam being beaten with shoes by local people outside Baitul Mukarram in Dhaka on January 1, 1981.

Ducsu General Secretary SM Farhad said Jinnah’s statement declaring Urdu the sole state language of Pakistan had been displayed to highlight his stance against Bangladesh.

He said suppressing such history would amount to siding with Jinnah rather than exposing his position.

The archive reopened on Sunday. Three Jinnah-related images were displayed: a March 21, 1948 photograph of Jinnah declaring Urdu as Pakistan’s sole state language, a 1940 All India Muslim League session photograph in Lahore, and a Dawn clipping on the 1970 election.

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Zuma said no individual Jinnah photograph had been placed there and that the images depicted events connected to Dhaka University between 1905 and 1971.

No prominent Bangabandhu photograph was displayed, although a photograph of his sons’ 1974 weddings and three newspaper clippings featuring him remained.

Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal had earlier condemned the display of Jinnah photos and the proposed renaming of Madhur Canteen as “Ishrat Manzil”, calling them signs of the council’s abandonment of the university’s liberation-oriented spirit.