Bangladesh’s new outcasts: Students from ex-PM Hasina’s party now in hiding

Until August, they dominated college campuses and were accused of leading violent mobs against anti-Hasina protesters.

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Since early August, Fahmi*, 24, who used to be a dominant figure on the sprawling campus of Dhaka University in Bangladesh’s capital, has been in hiding.

Fahmi was a member of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) party that ruled over the South Asian nation with an iron fist for more than 15 years before she was ousted and forced to flee to neighbouring India following a student-led movement in August.

On Wednesday, Bangladesh’s interim government, led by its only Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, declared the BCL a “terrorist organisation” and banned it. The Ministry of Home Affairs said the BCL had a history of serious misconduct over the past 15 years, including violence, harassment and exploitation of public resources.

“Not long ago, I was a voice of authority here,” Fahmi, an undergraduate student of applied chemistry, told Al Jazeera. “Now, I am running around like a fugitive with no probable future.”

Fahmi’s story mirrors that of thousands of students formerly affiliated with the AL, whose once-powerful hold over Bangladesh’s campuses collapsed overnight. The former powerbrokers on campuses and the AL’s muscle on the streets now face eviction, retribution and even imprisonment for their role in trying to suppress the popular revolt against Hasina and for the rights violations they allegedly committed while she was in power.