Students lock office of principal in protest

Students of Barisal Nursing College locked and besieged the principal's office yesterday morning protesting a request of the health ministry to allow female students of Sher-e-Bangla Medical College to live in the newly-built academic building of the nursing college.

The demonstrating students have been staying there till filing of the report at 8:00pm.

During the agitation programme, SBMC Principal Bhaskar Saha and Additional District Magistrate Hosne ara Begum asked them to accept the request for six months.

The nursing college students, however, refused saying that they had accommodation crisis.

They said 560 female students of the nursing college have been living in a building meant for only 200. They demanded immediate withdrawal of the ministry's verbal order imposed on Monday.

Bhaskar Saha said 700 students out of 1,100 of SBMC were female. The dormitory of the female students of the medical college was closed on February 15 after cracks developed in the five-storey building. The institution was also closed the same day.

Bhaskar said the request for the academic building was only a temporary solution before inauguration of the new dormitory, which was under construction.