In an unprecedented display of muscle-power, JCD boys were guarding all the entrances to the campus to make sure that BCL supporters were kept out. This is no doubt student politics in its most belligerent form. It can only add to the nagging campus violence, which has already caused great damage to the academic interests of the students.

The development over the last four or five days have raised some questions in the public mind. First, what is the government doing when the ruling party's student wing is unleashing a reign of terror on the campus of the country's premier university? The government has been making some concerted efforts to enhance its capability to contain criminal activities. The main purpose of commissioning the special anti-crime forces was to curb the clout of musclemen and hardened criminals. However, if the supporters of a student outfit are allowed to take the law in their own hands (how else can we describe their activities?), then combating crime would become a selective affair. Second, it is admitted on all hands that politicisation of police or the administration is a dangerous proposition and BNP has gone far in that direction, further than ever before. The allegation that the JCD boys were supported by the on-duty policemen when they chased out their rivals shows that some of the basic principles of democratic dispensation are being flouted by the ruling party. Third, can higher education and this kind of violence go together? The DU has unfortunately become the centre of student politics (or vandalism) of the most strident kind.

A madness of sorts appears to have gripped the ruling party's student wing. We are forced to warn the BNP leadership that they must immediately rein in the JCD activists. They must be aware of what happened to such parties before.