"Forget about blue or red panel. We'll give a sharp, befitting reply if you continue destroying our academic life in the name of movement," said a department unit president of the JCD, pointing finger at the teachers staging a sit-in under the umbrella of Dhaka University Teachers' Association (Duta) to protest the attack on their senior colleague and eminent writer Humayun Azad last week.

The JCD activists under the banner of 'general students' also turned the loudspeakers toward the teachers and continued delivering provocative speeches. The teachers later lodged complaint with the vice-chancellor and demanded necessary measures.

Duta yesterday decided to indefinitely continue with the class-boycott programme in protest at the attack on Azad.

A brief 'solidarity rally', presided over by the Duta president, was also held simultaneously at Battala to press home the demands for arresting the attackers, sending Azad abroad for better treatment and resignation of the home minister.

The speakers at the rally include Gono Forum President Dr. Kamal Hossain, Communist Party of Bangladesh President Manzurul Ahsan Khan, Justice KM Sobhan, Convenor of 11-party Khalequzzaman, Awami League leaders Mahamudur Rahman Manna, Akhteruzzaman and Sultan Mohammad Monsur, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology Teachers Association President Prof Aminul Haq Bhuiyan and its General Secretary Prof Nazrul Islam, Editor of The Bangladesh Observer Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury and Bangladesh Economic Society President Kazi Khalequzzaman.

The speakers urged the people to forge a unity to fight what they said was misrule of the government, which is trying to divert the movement to save the attackers of Azad.

Condemning Wednesday's attack on the general students and journalists by police and the JCD activists, they demanded a proper inquiry into the attacks and punishment to the police and JCD activists responsible.

They also stressed the need for a unity among 'like-minded people and parties' to topple the 'fascist' government as 'lives of all sections of people have become endangered under this government's rule'.

Earlier in a midnight raid yesterday, the JCD activists assaulted at least five resident students of Jagannath Hall who were demonstrating in support of the nine-point demand including arrest and punishment of the attackers on Azad and resignation of the home minister.

The JCD men also beat up eight leaders and activists of pro-Awami League Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) before driving them out of the dormitories, the BCL leaders alleged at a press briefing.

A group of JCD activists also roamed around the Institute of Fine Arts of the university yesterday and barred the demonstrating students of the institute from entering it.

A tense situation prevailed on the campus since early morning as the JCD threatened the previous day that they would no more allow on-campus demonstration to protest the attack on Azad.

No violent incident however took place as the left-leaning student organisations and BCL brought out separate processions and held rallies on the campus alongside the teachers' sit-in programme protesting Wednesday's police and JCD attacks on the general students and journalists.

Over 100 students, including women and five journalists, were injured in two-pronged attack by police and the JCD men at Dhaka University Wednesday during demonstrations.

The JCD occupied the foot of Aparajeyo Bangla at around 9:00am yesterday and hung their banner though 'Humayun Azad Mancha', a platform of DU general students, was scheduled to hold its programme there.

The JCD brought its activists from different educational institutions and city units to the campus, took out a procession and held a rally there. The rally urged the students to resist those who are conspiring to destroy the academic atmosphere of the university in the name of movement.

The general students damaged a video camera of the Detective Branch (DB) of Police and assaulted the camera crew, a DB constable, when he attempted to take snap of their procession at the Teacher-Student Centre.

On Wednesday, ruling BNP's cultural wing the Jatiyatabadi Samajik Sangskritik Sangstha captured the podium erected by the general students at the Soparjito Swadhinata.

Meanwhile, the Sammilita Sangskritik Jote (SSJ), the premier organisation of cultural activists, yesterday brought out a silent procession carrying four coffins on the Dhaka University campus demanding punishment of the attackers of Azad.

Frontline AL leaders and leaders of some left-leaning political parties including the Workers Party of Bangladesh, Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) joined the silent procession, taken out from the Central Shaheed Minar, to express solidarity with the SSJ.

At a pre-procession gathering at the Minar premises, the leaders condemned the police attack on the agitating and accused the government of politicising the issue of attack on Azad.