The number of arrests in Bangladesh following days of violence after protests over employment quotas sparked widespread unrest crossed the 2,500 mark on Tuesday, according to an AFP tally.
At least 174 people have been killed, including several police officers, according to a separate AFP count of victims provided by police and hospitals.
The protests, which began against politicised quotas for entry into government jobs, spiraled into the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure last week.
Curfews were imposed and troops deployed across the South Asian country, and a nationwide internet blackout drastically restricted the flow of information, disrupting daily lives for many.
On Sunday, the Supreme Court reduced the number of jobs reserved for specific groups, including descendants of “freedom fighters” from Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War against Pakistan.
The student group leading the demonstrations suspended its protests for 48 hours on Monday. The group’s leader said they did not want reforms “at the cost of so much blood.”
The restrictions remained in place on Tuesday after the army chief said the situation was “under control”.
There was a heavy military presence in Dhaka, with bunkers set up at some intersections and major roads blocked with barbed wire.
But there were more people on the streets, as well as hundreds of rickshaws.
“I did not drive my rickshaw during the first few days of the curfew but today I had no choice,” rickshaw driver Hanif told AFP.
“If I don’t do this my family will go hungry.”
The head of Students Against Discrimination, the main group organising the protests, told AFP from his hospital room on Monday that he feared for his life after being kidnapped and assaulted, and the group said on Tuesday that at least four of its leaders were missing, and urged authorities to “return” them by the evening.
‘Random killing’
The authorities’ response to the protests has been widely criticised, and Bangladesh’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus urged “world leaders and the United Nations to do everything within their powers to end the violence” in a statement.
The 83-year-old respected economist is credited with lifting millions out of poverty through his pioneering microfinance bank but has incurred the enmity of Hasina, who has accused him of “sucking the blood” of the poor.
“Young people are being killed randomly every day,” Younus told AFP. “Hospitals don’t give the numbers of the injured and dead.”
Diplomats in Dhaka have also questioned the government’s action. US Ambassador Peter Haass told the foreign minister that he had shown a one-sided video to diplomats in a briefing.
Government officials have repeatedly blamed protesters and the opposition for the unrest.
More than 1,200 people were detained during the violence – nearly half of the total 2,580 detained in Dhaka and its rural and industrial areas – according to police officers who spoke to AFP.
Nearly 600 people were arrested in Chittagong and its rural areas, and hundreds were detained in various districts across the country.
‘Sheikh Hasina never runs away’
With nearly 18 million young people unemployed in Bangladesh, according to government data, the reintroduction of the quota scheme in June — which had been suspended since 2018 — has led to deep disappointment among graduates facing a severe employment crisis.
Amid growing protests across the country, the Supreme Court on Sunday reduced the number of reserved jobs from 56 per cent to seven per cent, mostly for the children and grandchildren of “freedom fighters” of the 1971 war.
Though 93 per cent of jobs would be given on the basis of merit, the decision did not meet the protesters’ demand to abolish the “freedom fighter” category altogether.
Late Monday, Hasina’s spokesman told AFP that the prime minister had approved a government order implementing the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Critics say the quota is used to give place to public jobs to loyalists of Hasina’s ruling Awami League.
Hasina, 76, has been ruling the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive term in January after voting without any real opposition.
Human rights groups have also accused his government of abusing state institutions to consolidate its grip on power and suppress dissent, including through extrajudicial killings of opposition activists.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
