Row among trustees spells trouble for NSU

The country’s first private university, North South University, is in trouble over running its operations due to a conflict among the trustees.
The problem emerged as the trustee board members, who were part of the board before its reconstitution in August 2022, held a meeting on the campus on Wednesday.
Among them, five then trustees — Azim Uddin Ahmed, Mohammed Shajahan, Benajir Ahmed, MA Kashem and Rehana Rahman — were facing a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission over irregularities worth Tk 304 crore involving land purchase and other matters.
Two members of the previous trustee board confirmed this newspaper that they held the meeting on the campus, with Azim Uddin in the chair.
A source who attended the meeting said the trustees decided to make decisions that would benefit the university, taking into account the opinions from students and teachers.
Aziz Al Kaiser, a member of the previous trustee board, said they secured a High Court stay order on a government decision that reconstituted the NSU trustee board in August 2022.
“The High Court order means the previous trustee board has been revived,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.
Asked about the ACC case against the five former trustees, Kaisar said the case was “politically motivated” and the allegations were “baseless”.
NSU VC Atiqul Islam, also an ex-officio member of the reconstituted trustee board, refused to clarify the current situation.
“I don’t have any clarification regarding the prevailing situation. I don’t know anything,” he told this newspaper yesterday.
Prof Biswajit Chanda, University Grants Commission (UGC) member responsible for overseeing private universities, declined to make comments.
On Tuesday, the High Court bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Sashanka Shekhar issued a stay on the government’s decision that reconstituted the NSU trustee board in August 2022.
The court passed the order and a rule after hearing two writ petitions filed by Aziz, Azim, Benajir, MA Kashem, Rehana and Shahjahan.
Md Imam Hossain and Kazi Akhtar Hosain, lawyers for the petitioners, told reporters that the previous trustee board was revived through the HC order.
The NSU, one of the leading private universities in the country, was established in 1992. It has about 23,000 students.
WHY BOARD WAS RECONSTITUTED?
Then president Abdul Hamid on August 16, 2022, reconstituted the NSU Board of Trustees, dropping seven of its former members.
Hamid, also then chancellor of the university, reconstituted the board as some members of the previous board were found to be “involved in anti-state activities, sponsorship of militancy, corruption and arbitrariness” in a probe by the UGC.
He also cut the number of board members to 12 from 16.
The seven dropped previous trustee board members are Azim Uddin Ahmed, Benajir Ahmed, Aziz Al Kaiser, MA Kashem, Rehana Rahman, Mohammed Shajahan, and Nurul H Khan.
The ex-president, however, kept nine of the previous board members in the new one — ex-officio member Atiqul Islam, MA Kalam, SM Kamaluddin, Abul Kashem, Yasmin Kamal, ASF Rahman, Junaid Kamal Ahmad, Fawzia Naaz and Tanveer Harun.
Three new faces were added to the board — Javed Munir Ahmed, Faiza Jamil and Sheema Ahmed. Javed was later made chairman of the board.
This correspondent did not find the names of the trustees on the NSU website yesterday.
A member of the previous trustee board yesterday said the decision on reconstituting the board came following pressure from different offices and agencies of the previous Sheikh Hasina-led government. He said four members of a single family were even made trustees.
Meanwhile, a group of NSU students have been staging demonstrations for more than a week to press home their 30-point demand, including removal of the VC and several top officials, reformation of the proctorial body, ban on student politics and waiver of tuition and other fees.
Kaiser yesterday said students have put forward some demands, including removal of the VC. “We are yet to take any decision on terminating him.”