The recently formed committee of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), students' wing of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has failed to form a full-fledged committee even two weeks after BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia approved names of JCD's new top five leaders.

After giving approval of a five-member committee on July 1, BNP chairperson directed them in turn to form a full-fledged committee within 10 days but they failed to do the same yet largely due to in-house differences and rivalries within the JCD, it is understood. However, JCD leaders admitted the delay but claimed that the process of forming the full committee is under process and it will be announced soon.

The BNP chairperson on July 1 night announced the names of five top office-bearers of the 101-member central committee of JCD with Sultan Salahuddin Tuku as president and Amirul Islam Khan Alim as general secretary respectively. The three other nominees of the committee are: senior vice-president Shahidul Islam Babul, joint secretary Amiruzzaman Khan Shimul and organising secretary Anisur Rahman Khokan.

But, the new committee headed by Tuku, which has been entrusted with responsibilities to run the students' body till January next, has been facing internal opposition and factional fighting, has so far failed to name the remaining members of the central committee. On the other hand, a faction of JCD in the Dhaka University campus has refused to accept the Tuku Committee and termed it a 'committee of uncles' claiming that most of the leaders are aged and non-students.

At a protest meeting in the campus yesterday, they also appealed to Khaleda Zia to cancel the committee immediately and form a fresh one comprising regular students along with young leaders of JCD. The meeting was attended by leaders of the DU unit of JCD Mamunur Rashid Mamun, Sadiur Kabir Nirob, Akramul Ahsan Mintu, Danesul Islam, Jahan-e-Alam Himel, Amir Amjad Munna and Sariful Hasan.

On July 6, the newly formed JCD central committee dissolved the organisation's three units and expelled four leaders for breaching JCD rules as well as for their involvement in anti-organisational activities. The dissolved units were DU, Dhaka City (South) and Dhaka City (North) of the organisation and expelled leaders were Saiful Islam Firoz, Mamunur Rashid Mamun, Akramuzzaman Hasan and Sadiur Kabir Nirob.

When contacted over phone yesterday, JCD president Sultan Salahuddin Tuku said that he did not give any deadline for announcing the full-fledged committee. But, he hoped the formation of a full committee would be completed very soon. Tuku said: "We are working for formation of the committee as early as possible. We have already completed 50 per cent of the work. It will take some more time as we are collecting information from the grassroots level of the organisation across the country."

-The Independent