A Dhaka University professor said he could not risk sleeping at his home.

His colleagues have come to his help, cutting across political differences. He has since been staying with them at night, often switching homes depending on their intelligence.

The Jagannath Hall campus of Dhaka University, where the teachers live in staff quarters, is in the heart of the Bangladesh capital. Excerpts from what he said (the professor’s identity is being withheld for his security):

The gathering of over 25,000 people at Shahid Minar on Saturday was a clear indication that the Hasina government was falling. On Saturday night, five uniformed police personnel ran past the main gate of our Jagannath Hall campus.

A group of men came chasing them and while passing our gate, some of them tried to enter the campus thinking the cops were hiding inside. They were carrying daggers, shovels and sticks. They banged on the main gate violently and left a few minutes later.

A few hours later, past Saturday midnight, another group came. A few of them were dressed like fanatics. They were carrying dangerous weapons and were again banging on the gate. All of us were petrified. Had they not left on their own, there was no way we could have stopped them that night.

Since then, I have not risked sleeping in my quarters, where I live with my family. My friends, many of whom subscribe to other political ideologies, advised me not to step out of the campus.

Monday morning is now like a blur as the events unfolded one after the other. I was mostly busy making calls.

Some senior political leaders who tried to make light of the situation (before 11.30) on Monday morning switched off their phones in the evening.

On Monday evening, some of us (professors) were sitting on the campus and discussing the day’s developments when suddenly one of the staffers came to inform us that a group of men had been spotted coming towards our campus.

Barely five minutes later, the staffer came running again and asked us to rush home. The men had breached the boundary wall and entered the campus, he said.

There was not a minute to waste. We ran for safety. I took shelter in a colleague’s quarters.

We tried to gather more information about what was happening on the campus. The men were vandalising the statues of Bangabandhu, we were told.

Panicked, I called a colleague and told him about the attack on the campus. He said he was coming.

Some time later, this colleague, along with a few other men, came and pacified the mob that had vandalised several statues by then. Who knows what was on their mind that day? Who knows what they would have done had they not been restricted to breaking statues?

Till now the situation is the same. Although mobs have not entered the campus since, given that neither police nor firefighters are working now, we can expect help only from people who have been friends for years despite political differences.