The caretaker government banned the Bangladesh Chhatra League last night, giving in to the demands of the student movement against discrimination.

The Interior Ministry issued a gazette notification with immediate effect, saying the government had invoked the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009 to ban the BCL, a 76-year-old pro-Awami League student organization.

The move comes a day after students issued an ultimatum to the government, saying they would take to the streets unless the BCL was banned this week.

Several hundred students protesting outside the vice-chancellor’s office at Dhaka University cheered as news of the ban spread.

Andul Kader, coordinator of the student movement, announced near the TSC that students would march and spread sweets on university campuses across the country in celebration at 3 p.m. today.

According to the official gazette, the government took the decision in accordance with Section 18 (1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009 and listed the BCL among the banned entities under the Second Schedule of the Act.

The section reads: “For the purposes of this Act, the government, if it has reasonable grounds to believe that a person or entity is involved in terrorist activities, may, by order, register the person in the Schedule or prohibit the entity and include it in the Schedule. calendar.”

The government has evidence that the BCL has been involved in various conspiratorial, subversive and terrorist activities against the state since the fall of the Awami League government on August 5, the notification read.

He adds that the BCL, AL’s “brother” organization, was involved in activities contrary to public security; crimes include murder, torture, and oppression of resident students in dormitories informally called gono rooms. A large number of students stay cramped in such rooms.

The BCL took money to buy dormitories, manipulated tenders, raped and sexually harassed women, and committed other crimes after independence, especially during the last 15 years of autocratic AL rule , he adds.

Information and evidence in this regard have been published in mainstream media and the involvement of some BCL leaders and activists in criminal activities has also been proven in court, it says.

During the student movement since July 15, BCL leaders and activists have launched frenzied and reckless armed attacks against protesting students and the general public, killing hundreds of innocent students and individuals and endangering the lives of many other people, the notification adds.

“Bangladesh and Dhaka University are now free from stigma. We would like to thank the caretaker government,” said Nusrat Tabassum, coordinator of the student movement, at the university’s Raju Sculpture.