Call for PM to resign as deaths reach 243
THOUSANDS of Bangladeshi protesters demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resign clashed with government supporters yesterday, with dozens killed in one of the deadliest days since demonstrations began.
Rallies that began last month against civil service job quotas have escalated into some of the worst unrest of Hasina’s 15-year rule and shifted into wider calls for the 76-year-old to step down.
At least 37 people were killed yesterday alone, the rival sides battling with sticks and knives and security forces firing rifles, taking the total killed since protests began in July to at least 243. However, soldiers and police in several cases did not intervene to stem the protests, unlike the past month of rallies that repeatedly ended in deadly crackdowns.
A respected former army chief also demanded that the government withdraw troops and allow protests in a hugely symbolic rebuke of Hasina.
Demonstrators in Dhaka, surrounded by a tightly packed and cheering crowd, waved a Bangladeshi flag on top of an armoured car as soldiers watched, according to videos on social media verified by AFP. But elsewhere AFP reporters reported hearing the constant crackle of gunfire from security forces, while mobile internet was tightly restricted and police ordered a nationwide curfew. Furious protesters seemed determined to continue.
Troops briefly imposed order after violence erupted in July.
However, crowds returned to the
streets in huge numbers this month in a non-co-operation movement aimed at paralysing the government.
Vast crowds of protesters, many wielding sticks, packed into Dhaka’s central Shahbagh Square on Sunday, with street battles in multiple sites as well as in other key cities, police said.
“There were clashes between students and the ruling party men,” said police inspector Al Helal, saying two young men were killed in Dhaka’s Munshiganj district. “One of the dead was hacked in his head and another had gunshot injuries.”
Another policeman, who asked not to be identified, said “the whole city has turned into a battleground”.
Two people were killed in the northern city of Kishioreganj, where protesters torched a ruling party office, police said. Police and doctors also reported deaths in districts in the north, west, south and centre of the capital. Six people were killed in the northern town of Raiganj, said government administrator Nahid Hasan Khan
Asif Mahmud, one of the key leaders in the nationwide civil disobedience campaign, urged supporters to
rally after last month’s marches were crushed by police. “Prepare bamboo sticks and liberate Bangladesh,” he wrote on Facebook yesterday.
Some former military officers have joined the student movement and ex-army chief General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan turned his Facebook profile picture red in a show of support.
“We call on the incumbent government to withdraw the armed forces from the street immediately,” Bhuiyan told reporters yesterday in a joint statement alongside other senior ex-officers, condemning “egregious killings, torture, disappearances and mass arrests”.
“Those who are responsible for pushing people of this country to a state of such an extreme misery will have to be brought to justice,” he said.
Current army chief Waker-uzZaman told officers at military headquarters in Dhaka on Saturday that the “Bangladesh Army is the symbol of trust of the people”.
“It always stood by the people and will do so for the sake of people and in any need of the state,” he said, according to an army statement.