Bangladesh’s new outcasts: Students from ex-PM Hasina’s party now in hiding

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Since early August, Fahmi*, 24, who used to be a dominant figure on the sprawling campus of Dhaka University in Bangladesh’s capital, has been in hiding.

Fahmi was a member of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) party that ruled over the South Asian nation with an iron fist for more than 15 years before she was ousted and forced to flee to neighbouring India following a student-led movement in August.

On Wednesday, Bangladesh’s interim government, led by its only Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, declared the BCL a “terrorist organisation” and banned it. The Ministry of Home Affairs said the BCL had a history of serious misconduct over the past 15 years, including violence, harassment and exploitation of public resources.

“Not long ago, I was a voice of authority here,” Fahmi, an undergraduate student of applied chemistry, told Al Jazeera. “Now, I am running around like a fugitive with no probable future.”

Fahmi’s story mirrors that of thousands of students formerly affiliated with the AL, whose once-powerful hold over Bangladesh’s campuses collapsed overnight. The former powerbrokers on campuses and the AL’s muscle on the streets now face eviction, retribution and even imprisonment for their role in trying to suppress the popular revolt against Hasina and for the rights violations they allegedly committed while she was in power.

Fahmi maintains he did not directly participate in the government’s deadly crackdown against people during the anti-Hasina demonstrations. “My sisters were part of the protests,” he said. “I also believed in the cause but was trapped by party obligations.”

The deadly protests began in July after college students demanded the abolition of a controversial reservation system in government jobs that they said favoured supporters of the governing party. Though Bangladesh’s top court scrapped the quota, the protests soon morphed into a wider call for the removal of Hasina’s “autocratic” regime, marked by allegations of widespread rights violations.

The government’s response was one of the bloodiest chapters in Bangladesh’s history as security forces beat the protesters, and fired tear gas and live ammunition on peaceful demonstrators, killing more than 1,000 people in three weeks and arresting thousands of others.

On August 5, as defiant Bangladeshis stormed prominent government buildings, including Hasina’s residence and the parliament, the 77-year-old prime minister fled the country in a military helicopter and sought refuge in New Delhi.

The violence, however, did not end with Hasina’s fall. The former perpetrators of state atrocities became the new targets as hundreds of AL politicians and members, including students, were attacked or killed. Many went into hiding or were detained while attempting to flee.

Fahmi said the anti-Hasina protesters set fire to his family’s home and cold storage business in Noakhali district, 173km (107 miles) from Dhaka. “They threatened to make my younger brother disappear if he didn’t disclose my whereabouts,” he said. So far, they haven’t acted on the threat, said Fahmi, though his younger brother has been bullied at the madrasa [a Muslim educational institution] where he studies.

Reflecting on his BCL involvement, Fahmi admitted, “I was a good student who cared little for politics, but at Dhaka University, hall politics was unavoidable. You either joined, or you suffered.” He admitted that being a BCL leader would improve his prospects of landing a government job – an appealing incentive in a shrinking job market – especially since his responsibilities towards his mother, two unmarried sisters, and younger brother grew after his father’s death two years ago.

But his loyalty to the Awami League also meant he was not always there for his family when they needed him.

On August 15, 2022 – just a day after his father’s passing – he left his grieving family in Noakhali to attend an event in Dhaka marking the anniversary of the death of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father and the leader of Bangladesh’s movement for independence from Pakistan.

“Looking back, I see I prioritised the party’s approval over supporting my family,” Fahmi said with regret.

Now, while his erstwhile leader Hasina is safe in India, he faces the constant threat of violence or arrest, a scenario that he says made him feel that he has been abandoned by the party he once represented and the university he is a student of.

“The salam [peace] I offered and hours I invested buttering up our leaders and arranging party rallies … now seem meaningless,” he said bitterly. “The party used us as its political pawns but offered no protection when we needed it most. The regime fell suddenly; saving myself from the angry mob was the hardest thing I ever faced that evening. Yet, neither top party leaders nor BCL’s student leaders have checked on me.”

With his final year exams under way, he cannot attend classes or complete his degree. “I wanted to join the civil service and serve the nation,” he said. “But stepping on campus could lead to my arrest on dubious charges – or worse, I could be beaten to death.”

Thousands in limbo

Fahmi’s situation is far from unique. The Awami League estimates that at least 50,000 of its student affiliates across the nation are now in limbo, struggling to continue their tertiary education.

Shahreen Ariana, a BCL leader from Rajshahi University, was arrested on October 18 on “forged charges,” according to her family. She was detained while trying to sit for a term-final exam. Saikat Raihan, another BCL leader at Rajshahi University, was arrested on the same day.

The district police, however, claimed that both faced prior cases, but refused to provide documents to back their claim. Meanwhile, the university’s proctor, Mahbubur Rahman, told Al Jazeera, “Other students refused to sit with any BCL leader during the exam.” To prevent any “mob justice,” Ariana and Raihan were handed over to the police. “We had to intervene,” he said. “Otherwise, things could have gotten worse.”

On October 25, two more BCL leaders — Abul Hasan Saidi, a finance student and Kazi Shihab Uddin Taimur, an anthropology student — were arrested while appearing for exams at Dhaka University. “There were existing cases against the two students, and they were arrested accordingly,” said university Proctor Saifuddin Ahmed.

The wave of violence against Awami League-affiliated students has spread across campuses. On the outskirts of the capital, former Jahangirnagar University BCL activist Shamim Ahmed was beaten to death on September 18, while Masud, another BCL leader, was killed by a mob in Rajshahi on September 7.

“These are just the reported cases,” says Redwanul Karim Sagor, who goes by the name Sujon and was a senior BCL leader who is now in hiding. Sujon, nearly six feet tall, was wearing a crumpled black shirt and unpressed pants, his hair untrimmed. During our interview, he repeatedly asked if anyone else knew about the meeting. “There have been more killings, arrests and fabricated cases against us, often in areas we’ve never even visited,” he said.

The interim government that took over after Hasina fled, led by Nobel Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus, issued a gazette on October 23, officially banning the BCL under the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 – a law that was brought, ironically, by Hasina’s government soon after it came to power in 2009.

This decision came after nationwide protests led by Students Against Discrimination (SAD), the student group that mobilised the students against the Hasina government in July, and other groups demanding BCL’s ban.

Abdul Hannan Masud, a founding member of SAD, who earlier demanded this ban, said, “The Chhatra League cannot operate in Bangladesh. All their operatives will be identified nationwide and brought to justice.”

Meanwhile, police filed a major case over the July 15 BCL-led attack on protesters, incriminating 391 individuals, including then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and several BCL leaders. It also names up to 1,000 unidentified individuals.

Since the ban on the student body on October 23, officers in the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) confirmed to Al Jazeera the arrest of at least 10 BCL leaders from the city. More than 100 student activists were arrested from across the country.

“Almost all of these arrests are under cases filed over July protests,” said a senior DMP official, seeking anonymity, “based on no specific charges but under suspicion, and largely because of their affiliation with Chhatra League.”

Amid this turbulent environment, Sujon told Al Jazeera he now lives in a secret location.

We met on October 21 in a small, rundown cafe made of wood and bamboo over a canal along a desolate road, far from any neighbourhood, where passing cars would occasionally stop. We sat at a corner bench under dim lighting as Sujon constantly shifted his gaze towards the window, his eyes betraying his anxiety, as he kept downing glasses of water.

At one point, two cars pulled up outside, their occupants stopping briefly for water. As a broad-shouldered man stepped out, Sujon’s face tensed up, his voice stopping for a moment before he managed to continue sharing his story.

“I grew up in a generation that only saw Awami League in power. Aligning with them was the only option,” he said.

Sujon was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in physics at Rajshahi University and was one final-term exam away from graduation before the August upheaval forced him into hiding.

Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury, a former minister in Hasina’s cabinet, now in exile in India, criticised the interim government for the insecurity faced by BCL students. “This government claims to be building a discrimination-free Bangladesh,” he told Al Jazeera. “Yet it’s depriving thousands of students of their right to education.”

He argued that sidelining the BCL, the country’s largest student organisation with an estimated 100,000 members, could have consequences for all of Bangladesh. “How can Dr Yunus hope to build a better future for Bangladesh while excluding such a significant segment of its youth?”

Chowdhury emphasised that his party remains loyal to its members. “When the time is right, we will fight for their rights,” he asserted, “and ensure they can complete their education without fear.”

Azad Majumder, Muhammad Yunus’s deputy press secretary, told Al Jazeera that “everybody is free to join regular academic activities unless there are any criminal charges against him or her”.

However, when asked about the government’s measures to protect students from mob violence or arbitrary arrests, he said, “I have nothing to add.”

Rahman, the university proctor, stressed that the campus violence that was common when the BCL dominated should not be repeated in “new” Bangladesh. “Authorities aim to ensure all students graduate without facing violence,” he stated, noting that investigations are under way to identify the perpetrators of violence on the university’s campus from July 15 to August 5.

“Any students found guilty will face disciplinary actions according to the university’s code of conduct,” he added.

Reversal of fortunes

For more than a decade, the BCL ruled campuses with an iron grip. The Chhatra Dal, the student wing of the biggest opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, managed to maintain a presence but was often on the defensive. Meanwhile, the Islami Chhatra Shibir, the students’ body of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Muslim party, was forced underground.

Numerous media reports over 16 years show students being forced out of campuses – tortured, or even gruesomely murdered – by BCL members on suspicion of ties to the Shibir, which in August this year was banned by the Hasina government under the same anti-terror law now used against the BCL.

The ban on the Shibir was lifted by the Yunus government. And now, the tables have turned on the BCL more broadly, with opposition student wings reclaiming control across campuses.

“BCL created a system of modern slavery,” said Abu Shadik, president of the Chhatra Shibir’s Dhaka University unit — the first publicly declared Shibir committee in decades. “Students had to align with BCL to secure dorms; dissenters faced a living inferno. Some joined for survival, others for personal gain.”

“All BCL operatives who repressed students or joined the July violence must face justice. The common students have rejected them from society,” he told Al Jazeera. “Even those who didn’t attack but remained silent are culpable. To reconcile, they must admit to BCL’s 16 years of brutality, the July ‘genocide,’ and seek forgiveness. Only then can reintegration be considered.”

In a separate conversation, Nahiduzzaman Shipon, general secretary of the BNP’s Dhaka University unit, recalled the reign of violence on campus when the BCL dominated. “Awami League turned BCL into a force to rig votes, suppress dissent, and bypass the law,” he stated.

Shipon added that the BCL used sickles, machetes and firearms against their peers. “After 2009, many Chhatra Dal [BNP] members were tortured and forced off campuses, their education cut short.”

While exact figures on BCL-linked killings are unavailable, the opposition estimates suggest that the toll runs into the hundreds.

Still, Shipon insists, his party, the BNP, is not advocating for vigilante justice against BCL members.

“Any student without criminal charges is welcome back to campus, regardless of their political affiliations,” he said. “But those who used brutality as political enforcers must be held accountable under Bangladeshi law.”

A law that the party of students like Fahmi once controlled has now turned against them.