Dhaka University Journalists Association (DUJA), an organisation of students working as DU reporters, cancelled the membership of pro-Jamaat Bengali daily Dainik Sangram on July 4, 2015 for its anti-liberation role in 1971.

The decision was taken at a general meeting on Friday night at the DUJA office at Teacher-Student Centre on the university campus on the eve of formation of a new executive committee next week.

It also decided to hang a photograph of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at its office which was not there earlier.

DUJA former general secretary Saddam Hossain proposed at the meeting that the membership of Daily Sangram, which is acting as a mouthpiece for anti-liberation force Jamaat, must be canceled because of its “killer” roles during the country’s independence movement in 1971.

“Dhaka University is a place of free-thinking and progressive people. From its inception in 1921 it has played pivotal roles in all democratic movements of the country including the War of Liberation in 1971 when its teachers, students and employees made the supreme sacrifices to free the country from the Pakistani occupation forces,” Saddam said.

“Daily Sangram took stance against the Liberation War directly by patronizing killings, rapes and other heinous crimes by the Pakistani occupation forces and their local collaborators in the country,” Sujan Mondal, a member of the association, said.

“We think, DUJA, as a democratic and progressive organization of the country’s primer university, which was the birthplace for movements for independence of Bangladesh, must cancel the membership of Daily Sangram for its role against the War of liberation and afterwards against the fundamental principles of the state,” Protik Chakrabarty, an outgoing member of DUJA, said.

After Saddam’s placing of the proposal at the meeting, there had been a two-hour debate, and finally the membership of the newspaper was cancelled through a voice vote. –Our Monitor