The repeated assaults that have been made on newly elected DUCSU Vice President Nurul Haq Nur are a matter of worry for the country. Nur won election to the office after a hard struggle, during which he and his followers were pitted against the Bangladesh Chhatra League. During the campaign for the DUCSU elections, which were being held after nearly three decades, Nur was subjected to attacks by his rivals and humiliated publicly on the campus. But that did not prevent his election, which was a shock for the Chhatra League, which managed to garner a huge tranche of positions anyway.

One would have thought that Nur and his colleagues were well on their way to a proper DUCSU administration after the election, given especially the fact that the VP met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and received her blessings. But such expectations were to be belied when it became obvious that Nur was coming across hurdles in his attempts to do his job. His rivals were clearly not ready or willing to work with him. The latest incident in Bogura, where Nur and some of his followers came under attack as they were preparing an iftar programme, is an embarrassment not only for those behind the assault but also for the nation's institutions of higher learning. It is perhaps one of those rare occasions when a Vice President of the Dhaka University Central Students Union has found himself the target of physical mauling. In the history of DUCSU, its vice presidents and general secretaries, both in pre- and post-Liberation times, have played influential roles in keeping the spirit of democracy both in the universities and across the country alive. It is rather shocking that the current VP is systematically being prevented from following in the footsteps of his worthy predecessors.

What is shocking is that the DUCSU General Secretary, a Chhatra League man, has attempted to brush aside the Bogura incident as an expression of local people's anger over Nur's alleged patronization of Shibir elements. That is a preposterous allegation and those making it know it is not true. As for Nur, he is of course emphatic about the fact that it was the BCL men who attacked him and vandalized the venue for the iftar organized by the Bangladesh General Students Rights Protection Council in Bogura.

Such a situation must not be tolerated by either the government or citizens in general. Let action be taken against those responsible for the shameful episode.