Bangladeshi students set fire to the country’s state-run television station on Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina spoke on television to try to calm escalating clashes that have left at least 25 people dead.
Hundreds of protesters demanding reform of civil service recruitment rules turned their back on anti-riot police, who fired rubber bullets at them and chased the retreating officers, who fled towards BTV’s headquarters in the capital, Dhaka.
An angry mob then set fire to the network’s reception building and dozens of vehicles parked outside, a BTV official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Many people are trapped inside”, the broadcaster said on its Facebook page, adding that the “devastating fire” was spreading rapidly.
Hasina’s government has ordered the indefinite closure of schools and universities, while police step up efforts to bring the country’s deteriorating law and order situation under control.
The prime minister appeared on the broadcaster on Wednesday night to condemn the “killing” of protesters and vowed that those responsible would be punished regardless of their political affiliation.
But despite his appeals for calm, violence escalated on the streets as police again attempted to break up the protests with rubber bullets and tear gas.
At least 18 people were killed on Thursday, up from seven earlier in the week, and hundreds were injured, according to a casualty count from hospitals compiled by AFP.
More than two-thirds of these deaths were caused by “non-lethal” police weapons, according to details provided to AFP by hospital data.
Fresh clashes broke out in several cities across Bangladesh throughout the day as anti-riot police marched on protesters who set up another round of human blockades on roads and highways.
The elite Rapid Action Battalion police force said in a statement that helicopters rescued 60 police officers trapped on the roof of a building on the Canadian university’s campus, the site of some of Dhaka’s heaviest clashes on Thursday.
Three students and a rickshaw driver were brought dead to a hospital in the capital.
“They all had rubber bullet wounds,” Mahfouz Ara Begum, assistant superintendent of Kuwait Moeitri Hospital, told AFP.
“More than 150 students are also being treated here. Most of them have been hit by rubber bullets in their eyes.”
Other hospitals reported a total of 14 deaths to AFP through the day, of which 10 were in Dhaka, two in the port city of Chittagong and two in nearby towns.
“Calling him a dictator”
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 of the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
Critics say the scheme benefits the children of pro-government groups that support 76-year-old Hasina, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won a fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without any real opposition.
Human rights groups have accused his administration of seizing state institutions and suppressing dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Mubasher Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo in Norway, said the protests have become a widespread expression of dissatisfaction with Hasina’s autocratic rule.
“They are protesting against the repressive nature of the state,” he told AFP.
“The protesters are questioning Hasina’s leadership and accusing her of seizing power by force,” he said. “The students are actually calling her a dictator.”
Mobile internet shut down
Bangladeshis reported widespread mobile internet disruptions across the country on Thursday, two days after internet providers blocked access to Facebook – a key organising platform for the protest campaign.
Junior telecoms minister Junaid Ahmed Palak told AFP the government had ordered the network to be cut.
He had earlier told reporters that social media was being “used as a weapon to spread rumours, lies and misinformation”, forcing the government to ban it.
Along with the police action, protesters and students affiliated with the prime minister’s ruling Awami League also attacked each other in the streets with bricks and bamboo sticks.
Hasina’s speech did not assign responsibility for the deaths, but accounts from hospital authorities and students suggested at least some people were killed when police allegedly used non-lethal weapons on protests.
Human rights group Amnesty International said video evidence of clashes this week showed Bangladeshi security forces had used unlawful force.
Clashes overnight included fighting between police and more than 1,000 protesters on the outskirts of Dhaka, who set a roadside toll booth on fire.
“We spent the entire night trying to fend off attacks by protesters,” deputy police commissioner Iqbal Hussain told AFP.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)