Six killed as Bangladesh students protest against government job quota rule; protesters mourn slain classmates
Bangladeshi students on Wednesday mourned their classmates killed during protests against civil service recruitment rules, a day after the government ordered an indefinite closure of schools across the country to restore order.
Six people were killed in clashes across the country on Tuesday as rival student groups attacked each other with bricks and bamboo sticks and police dispersed rallies with tear gas and rubber bullets.
It was the most violent day yet in weeks of rallies demanding an end to a quota system for lucrative government jobs that opponents say unfairly benefits members of Bangladesh’s ruling party.
Protesters had planned to gather at the main university in the capital Dhaka to hold a public funeral ceremony for the dead but were prevented by riot police, who blocked entry routes with barbed wire.
“Our protest will continue no matter how much violence they unleash on us,” Chamon Faria Islam, a student at the prestigious Dhaka University, told AFP.
Following hours of unrest on the campus, around 200 students attempted to march towards the venue following which police hurled stun grenades to disperse them.
University students searched dormitories and expelled pro-government classmates on Tuesday night in what they said was an effort to end the violence.
Members of the student wing of the ruling Awami League party had clashed with protesters over the past two days, leaving at least 400 people injured on Monday.
“When the students were killed yesterday it sparked huge anger,” Abdullah Mohammad Ruhel, a postgraduate student at Dhaka University, told AFP.
“It was like a domino effect. The female students first started kicking out the Awami League students, then the male hostels did the same.”
Others present at the campus told AFP that all members of the ruling party’s youth wing had been ordered to leave their dormitories, and those who refused were dragged out.
The government late Tuesday asked every school, university and Islamic madrassa in the country to close their doors until further notice, shortly after which paramilitary forces were deployed in several major cities to restore order.
Police later raided the headquarters of the country’s main opposition party in central Dhaka and arrested seven members of its student wing.
Detective branch chief Harun-Or-Rashid told reporters that officers had recovered weapons from Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) offices.
“We found more than 100 Molotov cocktails, five or six bottles of petrol, about 500 sticks and seven firearms here,” he said.
Internet users in Bangladesh reported widespread disruptions on Facebook, the main platform used to organise protests.
Online freedom monitor NetBlocks said “multiple internet providers” in Bangladesh had completely blocked access to social media platforms in the wake of Tuesday’s crackdown.
Despite this, protests continued across the country on Wednesday, with hundreds of students blocking a railway line in the central city of Narayanganj.
‘There is no hope’
The almost daily protests this month have demanded the end of the quota system, which reserves more than half of the civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans who fought in the 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan.
Critics say the scheme benefits the children of pro-government groups that support 76-year-old Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won a fourth consecutive term in January after a vote without any real opposition.
“If you are a university student in today’s Bangladesh, you know how dangerously uncertain your future is,” Asif Saleh, director of BRAC, one of Bangladesh’s largest charities, wrote on Facebook in response to the unrest.
“My inbox is flooded with job requests. If I go to a village, fathers tell me, ‘I spent so much to educate my son, but he is not getting work.’”
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International and the US State Department have both condemned this week’s clashes and urged Hasina’s government not to crackdown on peaceful protesters.
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also called on the government on Tuesday to “protect protesters from any form of intimidation or violence”.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)