The protesting students of Sunamganj Medical College on the eighth day of their movement for two-point demand, including opening of the college hospital, on Tuesday agreed to return to classes after the authorities assured them of meeting their demands.
The authorities of the medical college and health department officials made the assurance at a meeting with the students at Lecture Gallery in the college’s academic building in the morning, campus sources said.
SMC principal professor Mustaq Ahmed Bhuiyan said, ‘The students agreed to return to their classrooms after discussion.’
The principal said that Public Works Department authorities agreed at the meeting to hand over the newly constructed five-storey building by December 16 to the medical college hospital.
‘Setting up of a ward will also be completed as soon as possible for conducting clinical classes six days a week,’ the SMC principal said.
Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College principal and Sylhet Medical University dean Ziaur Rahman Chowdhury, Heath Department’s Sylhet divisional director Anisur Rahman, Sunamganj Sadar Hospital superintendent Mahbubur Rahman, the district civil surgeon Jasim Uddin and Public Works Department executive engineer Nazmul Islam, among others, addressed the meeting.
The protesting students, however, claimed that they would announce their decision of withdrawal of their programme at a press conference scheduled for Wednesday on the campus.
They said that their programme of boycotting the academic and administrative activities was continuing on the campus till Tuesday.
‘We have just allowed the authorities to enter the Lecture Gallery of the academic building to discuss the demands,’ Nayeem, a representative of the SMC students told New Age in the afternoon.
The SMC students had started their movement on the campus since April 15 to press home their two-point demand that also included setting up a ward to ensure regular clinical classes.
On Sunday afternoon, they announced that they would go for a complete shutdown on the campus after an army team allegedly charged batons on them to disperse them from the Sylhet-Sunamganj highway, leaving around 53 of protesters injured, the students claimed.
Academic activities of the newly established SMC started temporarily at the Shantiganj Upazila Health Complex in the district on September 12, 2021.
The college was shifted later on its permanent campus in the Madanpur area under the Shantiganj upazila on November 5, 2023.
At present, 280 students are studying at the coillege in five batches, official sources said.
