A father-and-son duo are at daggers drawn over control of a Dhaka-based private university which, after August 5 2024, has come increasingly under the influence of the Jamaat-e-Islami. The fight has turned so nasty that in order to wrest control from his father the son even went to the extent of forging documents.
Since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government, the Jamaat moved swiftly to take control of at least 30 government and state-aided and about seven to eight higher educational institutions across Bangladesh.
Recently, the Jamaat-e-Islami’s students wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, wrested control of the largest and most influential students’ body, the Dhaka University Central Students Union, following elections to this unit.
Speaking at a press conference organised at Dhaka Press Club on September 12, European University of Bangladesh founder Vice-Chancellor and Vice-Chairman Maqbool Ahmed Khan accused his son Ahmed Farhad Khan of throwing him and four other functionaries out of the institution’s trustee board.
“My son and a few relatives of my wife have conspired in ways that will destroy the university,” a beleaguered Maqbool Ahmed Khan told reporters, adding that he has also been ousted from the family home and forced to live in a rented apartment elsewhere in Dhaka.
When Maqbool Ahmed Khan took over as the trustee board Vice-Chairman in 2023 everything appeared to run smoothly.
However, after the Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina was overthrown in a students’ movement on August 5, 2024, students of the university launched their own agitation over some demands. Maqbool Ahmed Khan is a 1971 liberation war veteran and Gopalganj commander.
“I was pushed out of the trustee board by my son whose armed supporters have prevented me from carrying out my responsibilities. This state of affairs has been continuing for the past one year. He then went to the extent of forging documents and my signature to oust four trustee board members before appointing his wife Bibi Ayesha Lubna’s two relatives on the board,” Maqbool Ahmed Khan complained.
Informed sources said that one of the four people behind Maqbool Ahmed Khan’s ouster is District Judge Helal Chowdhury.
The other European University functionary who backed Chowdhury in the take-over was the Registrar, Zubayer Enamul Karim, who has been involved with the university for about 10 years. In this context, sources close to Maqbool Ahmed Khan told Northeast News that Chowdhury and Enamul Karim have “longstanding association with the Jamaat-e-Islami” and were the “chief conspirators” behind the vice-chancellor’s ouster.
“I have been issued death threats and attempts have been made to project me as a mentally unstable person,” Maqbool Ahmed Khan said.
An FIR lodged by Maqbool Ahmed Khan, a former liberation war veteran, at Dhaka’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s court on * details the many allegations he has lodged against Ahmed Farhad Khan, Ishita Shabnam Khan, Pramita Shabnam Khan, Tauhid Hossain, Bibi Ayesha, Helal Chowdhury and Syed Sirajul Moula Sadrul Huda.
While focusing on two specific incidents in May 2025 and October 2024, the FIR provides details of the conspiracy that the accused persons allegedly hatched to out him from all posts at the European University of Bangladesh which was launched by him in 2012.
In August 2024, as a consequence of the students’ movement, European University students forced the resignation of the then Chairman, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir.
On September 26, 2024, the Trustee Board issued notice for the selection of a new chairman.
However, Maqbool Ahmed Khan was prevented from taking part in the board meeting. He was issued death threats by “extremists” who had taken control.
In the FIR, Maqbool Ahmed Khan alleged that his son put a gun at his temple and forced him to sign a blank paper.
On October 26, 2024, he found that most of the Trustee Board members had been thrown out and that Ahmed Farhad Khan had appointed himself the chairman while the other had arrogated to themselves the posts of vice-chairperson, secretary and member.
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Maqbool Ahmed Khan’s are nowhere near over. As recently as July 5, 2025, he lodged a General Dairy with New Market police station, stating that he feared for his life.
Reiterating that his personal security was in danger, Maqbool Ahmed Khan thought it prudent to keep the police informed.
Two months before this action, he had filed another General Dairy, pointing out that his elder brother, the founder Chairman of the university Trustee Board, was threatened with dire consequences if he did not vacate the position.
On May 15, Maqbool Ahmed Khan wrote a detailed letter to the Bangladesh University Grants Commission chairman, apprising him of the chain of events leading to his ouster from various posts of European University of Bangladesh.
