On December 7, Dhaka’s streets were seized by a joint protest by mobile‑phone vendors and college students. The demonstration ran from the bustling Science Laboratory area through Shahbagh and Agargaon, spilling onto roads outside the Education Building and causing significant traffic snarls, according to local media.
In Agargaon, vendors staged a sit‑in outside the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) office, demanding reforms to the National Equipment Identity Register (NEIR) and other telecom grievances. While most demonstrators stood on one side of the main road in front of the BTRC building, a smaller group blocked the opposite lane, a detail reported by the Dhaka Tribune.
Students from Dhaka College, Shaheed Suhrawardy Government College, Government Bangla College, Kabi Nazrul Government College, and Begum Bodrunnesa Government Girls’ College gathered at the Shahbagh intersection and held the road for roughly an hour. Around the same time, undergraduates and post‑graduates from seven campuses marched toward Shikkha Bhaban, demanding that authorities issue an ordinance for a new university. Police responded by setting up barricades and shutting the Secretariat‑bound road, further disrupting traffic flow.
High‑schoolers from Dhaka College and other secondary institutions continued to protest, calling for the preservation of college autonomy. Their rallies on campus grounds and adjacent streets further clogged the network of roads.
A month earlier, members of the left‑leaning Democratic Students’ Alliance suffered injuries in Khulna when they organized a human chain at Shibbari intersection on November 26 to protest nationwide assaults on shrines and Sufi sites, and to demand the release of Baul singer Abul Sarkar. At that junction, a separate group, identified as “Students‑People,” citing an “insult to religion,” launched a counter‑protest. Witness accounts from the Bengali daily Prothom Alo described a violent clash where the Alliance’s banners were seized and set ablaze. Confirming the incident, Kabir Hossain, officer‑in‑charge of Sonadanga Model Police Station, stated that the leftist students were attacked by “students and the general public.”
Sajeeb Khan, the general secretary of the district committee of the student union, recounted that the party began its stance at Shibbari around 3 p.m. despite police presence, only to face a pre‑planned assault at about 5 p.m. He identified the opposing group, operating under the “students‑and‑the‑people” banner, as connected to United People’s Bangladesh (UPB) and the Islamist student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, affiliated with Jamaat‑e‑Islami.
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