North South University (NSU), the country's first private university, ought to be a symbol of academic ambition and institutional integrity. Founded in 1992 with 137 students under a mandate rooted in "philanthropic, charitable, non-political, non-profit and non-commercial purposes," NSU today enrols more than 25,000 students. Yet behind that reputation lies a decades-long record of financial plunder, sexual harassment and an institutional tolerance for Islamist extremism that has, in intelligence files and court records alike, made the university's name synonymous with militancy. Multiple investigations by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Ministry of Education have, over successive years, documented the same pattern of misconduct and the same impunity.
Intelligence assessments, court records, and UGC reports collectively describe NSU as having long-standing links to Islamist militancy, including recruitment and activity by banned organisations with limited institutional resistance.
According to intelligence assessments, Hizb ut-Tahrir was introduced within NSU in 1992, the year of its founding, with Shah Abdul Hannan identified as a founding figure in the network. The first major public case emerged in 2012 with the dismissal of lecturer Hasnat Karim over alleged links to Hizb ut-Tahrir. In 2013, NSU students Faisal Bin Naeem and Rezwanul Haque were arrested in the murder case of blogger Rajib Haider Shovan and gave confessional statements under Section 164. In total, multiple NSU students were convicted in that case, all from engineering departments.
* Intelligence files trace militant recruitment in the university
* At least six terror incidents linked to current or former NSU students
* Some trustees storm campus after August 2024 political transition, assault faculty
* Students report systemic psychological distress; 75 per cent report depressive symptoms
* Academic ranking collapse worries students, guardians, well wishers of NSU
Subsequent incidents include former student Kazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, arrested in the United States in 2015 for an alleged plot to bomb the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and former student Momena Shoma, who in 2018 stabbed her homestay host in Australia, with investigators linking her radicalisation to Islamic State influence. At least three participants in the 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery attack were also NSU students, as was one individual killed in the Sholakia operation. One attacker, Nirbas Islam, studied Business at NSU from 2011 to 2012.
The university administration was aware of extremist activity. Former Vice-Chancellor Md Abdus Sattar admitted teachers and officials had “brainwashed” students into militancy. A UGC team found Hizb ut-Tahrir literature in the university library. Engineer Abul Hasanat Reza Karim, later linked to the Gulshan attack, had been a Business Faculty teacher and was previously dismissed multiple times on Hizb ut-Tahrir-related allegations before final removal. Intelligence reports also identified economics teacher Dr Ghulam Mohammad as “mainly active in promoting the ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir to students,” and noted his wife had filed a violence against women case against him in 2004. Dhaka University Professor Dr Syed Golam Mawla, a senior Hizb ut-Tahrir adviser, reportedly served as a guest teacher at NSU, while teacher Sheikh Tawfiq was identified as the group’s political adviser.
CTTC later arrested NSU alumnus Imtiaz Selim, described as the second-highest Hizb ut-Tahrir leader in Bangladesh. Intelligence sources claimed that most Hizb ut-Tahrir operations in Bangladesh were conducted from NSU and that up to 80% of those arrested under its banner were NSU students.
UGC findings also named several faculty members allegedly linked to militant activities, including former Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Gias Uddin Ahsan, former Dean Professor Mahbubur Rahman, Professor Hannan Mia, Dr Jasim Uddin Ahmed, engineering teachers Dr Abul Haque and Dr Awal, and Registrar Shahjahan. Ahsan, who was arrested on 1 July 2016 for allegedly sheltering Gulshan attackers, and later he, along with Librarian Dr Mostafizur Rahman and others, was dismissed following UGC pressure.
Separately, the Law and Human Rights Protection Foundation claimed that Nafis Imtiaz, convicted in the Rajib Haider murder case, had been readmitted to NSU after ten years, calling it evidence of institutional impunity.
Third Gender Issue
A 2013 incident at NSU’s Women’s Career Carnival, co-organised with Heroes for All (HFA), iSocial, and the Career and Placement Centre, drew public criticism after the cancellation of a scheduled session by transgender guest speaker Ho Chi Minh Islam, a nurse at the National Institute of Neurosciences and Hospital. The event aimed to address gender inequality and leadership development for women students.
Following student protests, her participation was withdrawn. She later reported facing intimidation, stating, “I have written and expressed what I wanted to say on social media. However, various threats are being made on Messenger.” The episode sparked controversy and concerns about the university’s environment for marginalised groups.
MENTAL PRESSURE ON STUDENTS
Internal NSU research, including Internet Dependence and Its Association with Depression Among the Students of North South University of Bangladesh and An In-Depth Analysis of Health Hazards and Dysfunctional Stresses in North South University, found that around 75% of students show signs of depression.
The studies attributed this to institutional stressors such as mandatory Saturday classes, a re-advising system that increases academic pressure, lack of student-friendly digital services, multiple exams scheduled on the same day, weak IT infrastructure, high campus food costs, and what researchers described as a double standard in administrative treatment of students. Researchers concluded that NSU does not provide a supportive environment for managing psychological distress, contributing to outcomes including reckless behaviour, internet dependency, and vulnerability to extremist recruitment.
POWER PRACTICE: ARMED OCCUPATION OF CAMPUS
The August 2024 political transition, which ended the Awami League government, led to the judicial restoration of former NSU trustees through High Court writ petitions, after they had been removed under the 2022 reconstituted Board. Faculty accounts describe their return as immediate and violent.
On 21 August 2024, reinstated trustees allegedly entered the campus with armed individuals, assaulted teachers and staff, seized a newly constructed building, and issued threats, including messages from Board member Shahjahan reportedly warning senior faculty of dismissal. Eyewitnesses also alleged threats of throwing faculty from the sixth floor.
On 22 August, Vice-Chancellor Professor Atiqul Islam was removed under duress, and Treasurer Professor Abdur Rab was installed as Acting Vice-Chancellor. The press release announcing the change was issued not by NSU but by the PR officer of a bank owned by a reinstated trustee. Under the Private Universities Act 2010, only the President (as Chancellor) can appoint or dismiss a Vice-Chancellor, not the Board.
Faculty and students showed rage against such activities and issued a statement saying, “some armed men entered the university campus. They insulted teachers and administrative officials. At one stage, they incited students to throw teachers and administrative officials off the roof of the building.”
However, trustees claimed the VC was removed due to student demands, which student representative Ayat denied, saying, “We did not support the anti-VC movement or the administrative change. We only talked about issues related to the interests of the students.”
BEATING OF A TEACHER
The violence directed at NSU's academic community has not been confined to incidents involving trustees. On 18 April 2022, Atiqur Rahman, a Jahangirnagar University teacher who also held a part-time position at NSU, was lured to a coffee shop in the Bashundhara residential area by a group of NSU students after he declined a request to provide examination questions in advance. He was beaten and threatened. Video footage of the assault, shared widely on social media, showed several individuals striking and verbally threatening the teacher.
OTHER CORRUPTIONS
Beyond previously documented issues, NSU is also accused of several additional irregularities. The university reportedly does not follow the UGC-prescribed grading system. Female faculty members have alleged sexual harassment and coercion to resign by Board of Trustees member Shahjahan, including accusations of molestation and extracting professional favours, partially recorded in UGC proceedings. Shahjahan is also accused of embezzling funds from the Campus Development Committee in collusion with contractor Tariqul.
Student Habiba H stated in a complaint, “NSU already imposes one of the highest tuition fees in Bangladesh, yet the quality of services and student support remains far below expectations.” Trustees are further alleged to have diverted university funds through inflated contracts and placed relatives on the payroll in nominal positions to draw salaries.
Founding trustee Abdul Awal, who says he no longer attends the campus, said, “This is a trust. This is a non-profit organization. They have taken lakhs of taka and a syndicate is doing this corruption together.” He also said he would not return due to the practices.
A faculty member, speaking anonymously, said, “There is no balance of power at the varsity, and if anyone protests, he or she will be under fear of losing their job. The practice of free thinking in such circumstances is very poor.”
RANKING COLLAPSE
While the university's Boardroom disputes have unfolded in courts and committee rooms, NSU's academic standing has entered a sustained and measurable decline �" a trajectory that analysts increasingly attribute to the governance crisis chronicled in this series.
In the QS World University Rankings, NSU fell from the 851�"900 band in 2024 to the 901�"950 band in 2025 and further to the 951�"1000 band in 2026. In the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026, the institution was placed in the 801�"1000 bracket, trailing domestic peers including Daffodil International University, Gazipur Agricultural University and Jahangirnagar University �" institutions that would, until recently, have ranked well behind it. The decline is steeper still in THE's Global Young University Rankings, where NSU dropped from the 201�"250 band in 2023 to the 301�"350 band in 2024, a fall of up to 100 places in a single year. Webometrics placed NSU 1,825th globally in 2023 and ranked it fourth among Bangladeshi universities by 2026, down from positions it had formerly led. BRAC University, Daffodil International University and Independent University Bangladesh have all surpassed it in comparative assessments.
A university is, at its core, a promise that knowledge will be guarded more carefully than money, and conscience more carefully than power. North South University began as such a promise in 1992. Three decades of scandal, impunity and a now measurable fall from academic grace suggest that promise has been quietly broken from within. The students who gathered near Gate No. 8 in June 2026, leave behind a question that is simple in its framing and formidable in its implications: how many more reports, rankings and reckonings will it take before that promise is honoured again?
