Bangladesh’s student movement has called for a march to the capital Dhaka on Monday, defying a curfew imposed by the authorities, in an attempt to pressure Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign. The latest protest comes a day after clashes between critical and pro-government demonstrators and police repression on the streets of the South Asian country left nearly a hundred people dead. According to local media cited by the BBC, tens of thousands of people are already heading to the city, while the army chief of staff, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, is scheduled to address the nation in the morning.
The capital woke up on Monday to the sight of army tanks and police vehicles roaming the streets, which were also patrolled by numerous officers on foot, according to an online news channel. There was hardly any civilian traffic, apart from a few motorcycles and the city’s characteristic three-wheeled taxis. The clashes in the Bangladeshi capital, as in many other parts of the country, had transformed the city on Sunday into a war zone due to violent clashes between protesters and Hasina supporters, many of whom were carrying sticks and metal objects.
At least 96 people died and hundreds were injured that day in this country of 170 million inhabitants, according to local media such as The Dhaka TribunePolice fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse tens of thousands of protesters. A nationwide curfew was imposed from 6 p.m. (2 p.m. in mainland Spain) on Sunday evening. Train services have been suspended and the country’s huge textile industry has closed its doors.
Bangladesh has been engulfed in violence and protests that began in July after student groups demanded the scrapping of a controversial quota system for public jobs, which they considered discriminatory in one of the world’s poorest countries. Although the country’s Supreme Court struck down the reform on July 21, the “Students Against Discrimination” movement took to the streets again last week to demand that the prime minister publicly apologize for the violence in the crackdown on demonstrations, restore internet connections, reopen university campuses and release those arrested in the protests.
Sunday was one of the most violent days since the start of the protests, with the highest number of fatalities in the country’s recent history, including at least 13 police officers. It even surpassed the number recorded on July 19. That day, at least 67 people died in the streets when students took to the streets. In total, around 300 people have died since the start of the protests.
The Bangladeshi government has ordered the closure of all government offices and courts for the next three days. The unrest in recent weeks, which has led the government to shut down internet services on several occasions, is the worst that the country, the eighth most populous in the world, has seen in the 20 years that Hasina has been in charge of the government (1996-2001 and 2009-2024). The 76-year-old prime minister won a fourth consecutive term in office in January in elections that were boycotted by the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
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“Excessive” force
Hasina’s critics, along with human rights groups, have accused her government of using excessive force against protesters, both through the police and the armed forces, which were deployed on the streets to control the protests.
“The government has killed many students. The time has come for the final response,” protest coordinator Asif Mahmud said in a statement on Facebook late on Sunday. “Everyone will come to Dhaka, especially the surrounding districts. Come to Dhaka and take a stand on the streets,” he said in the statement.
The Bangladesh Army has urged citizens to obey the curfew rules. “The Bangladesh Army will perform its promised duty in accordance with the Constitution of Bangladesh and the laws in force in the country,” a military statement said late on Sunday.
The violence was not limited to the streets of Dhaka, the capital. At least five people died in the eastern district of Feni, the superintendent of Sadar hospital, Abul Khair Miazi, told EFE. The head of the Kishoreganj administration, Abul Kalam Azad, said that three people died, including two burned to death “when the house of a leader of the Awami League (government) was set on fire.” One of the districts where the most fatalities were recorded was Sirajganj. Five people died in the region, according to the head of health services, Mohammad Jahangir Alam, in addition to the 13 members of the security forces, who died in a police station.
Hospital sources confirmed dozens of dead and wounded in several districts of the country, including the capital and Bogura, Pabna and Magura. Some of them, like the two who died in Munshiganj district, were shot, according to the superintendent of the health centre where they were treated, Abu Hena Muhammad Jamal.
The protests in the world’s eighth most populous country were sparked by student anger at high youth unemployment and a Supreme Court decision to reinstate a quota system that reserved 30 percent of public jobs for families of fighters in Pakistan’s war for independence. After violence broke out in July, which left more than 100 dead, the high court overturned the court order legalizing the controversial quota system.
The country’s top court has ordered a complete restructuring of the controversial quotas for public service jobs, from 30% to 5% for children of combatants, and leaving 2% for ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, lawyer Shah Monjurul Haque, representing the students who staged the protests against the law, told reporters. The decision meant that 93% of government jobs would be awarded on merit. This was the main demand of the students who took to the streets in July and have now re-emerged.
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