Dhaka University (DU) teachers yesterday protested against a decision to name a women student hall after Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and demanded restoring its name after Begum Sufia Kamal.

As many as 380 teachers in a statement said former prime minister Sheikh Hasina had allocated railway land to set up the hall, which was named after Begum Sufia Kamal.

But the BNP-backed senate members renamed it after the incumbent prime minister without discussing with the teachers, the statement said.

The teachers said a DU hall has been named after a living personality for the first time since independence.

They slammed the decision to cancel the dorm's name after Begum Sufia Kamal, poet and one of the pioneers in women's liberation movement.

Earlier, 18 senate members of the university protested the decision of renaming the women student hall.

The signatories of the statement include Prof RIM Aminur Rashid, Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, Prof AK Azad Chowdhury, Prof Harun-or-Rashid, Prof Kazi Shahidullah, Prof ABM Faruque, Prof Sharifullah Bhuiyan, Prof Hossain Mansur, Prof Sadeka Halim and Prof Afzal Hossain.