Four more members resigned from the management council of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Azad Abul Kalam, Samina Lutfa Nitra, Laika Bashir and Rachel Parris submitted their resignation letters to Director General Sheikh Rezauddin Ahmed on Wednesday.
When contacted to know about this, actor Azad Abul Kalam said: “There is no point in being a member of an ineffective council.” It seems that we have been kept under wraps. According to the rules, the Parishad meeting was supposed to be held every 3 months, but that did not happen. Nine months have passed since the last meeting.โ
He added: “The rule is that if art takes any initiative, it must be with the permission of the council. Nothing like that came to our attention. In that case, if the academy does something illegally, the responsibility of its activities will fall on us, but we are not informed about anything.โ
In the last nine months, the Board of Directors has met only once. That meeting happened during the tenure of Syed Jamil Ahmed, who resigned from the post of Director General on February 28, accusing the cultural affairs adviser, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, of nepotism and illegal activities.
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On September 9 last year, theatre director and researcher Professor Syed Jamil Ahmed was appointed as director general for two years. After his resignation, the government appointed a new director general.
According to sub-section 12(1) of the Shilpakala Academy Act, the council shall meet at least once in every three months, and the date, time and place of the meeting shall be fixed by the president of the council.
Prior to this, Mustafa Zaman, the director of the fine arts department, resigned in the first week of last July. In the last week of July, the writer and researcher Altaf Parvez resigned from the Arts Council.
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