Textile factories and banks reopened in Bangladesh on Wednesday after authorities eased a curfew imposed to prevent deadly clashes that broke out following student protests over civil service job quotas.
At least 186 people were killed in last week’s violence, the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals.
Thousands of soldiers are patrolling the South Asian country’s cities to maintain order, and most Bangladeshis are still without internet access nearly a week after a nationwide lockdown was imposed.
But after several days of unbridled violence, calm returned to the streets, and the country’s economically important textile factories resumed work with government approval.
“We were worried about the future of our company,” Khatun, a 40-year-old factory worker who gave only her first name, told AFP.
Despite the disruption, Khatun said she supported the student protesters’ demands for reform of government recruitment rules and was shocked by last week’s violence.
“The government should implement all their demands. Many of them died. They sacrificed for the future generations,” he said.
The garment industry generates annual export revenues of $50 billion for Bangladesh, with millions of young women employed sewing clothes for H&M, Zara, Gap and other major international brands.
A spokesman for the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association told AFP that garment factories “across the country” had resumed business.
Hasina and Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan have agreed to exempt garment workers from the ongoing curfew to return to work, the apex body’s spokesperson said.
The curfew was eased on Wednesday to allow some commerce to resume, but for most Bangladeshis it is still in place for up to 19 hours a day.
Banks, the stock exchange in the capital Dhaka and some government offices also opened between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm in line with the stay-at-home order’s daily holiday, government spokesman Shibli Sadiq told AFP.
‘A lot of blood’
The student group leading this month’s protests has suspended demonstrations until at least Friday, with one leader saying they did not want reforms “at the cost of so much blood”.
Police have arrested at least 2,500 people since the violence began last week.
The Hasina government says the stay-at-home order will be further relaxed if the situation improves.
Broadband internet was gradually restored on Tuesday evening, but mobile internet — a key communication channel for protest organizers — remained down.
Internet connectivity in Bangladesh is still around 20 percent of normal levels, according to data published by US watchdog NetBlocks.
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.
Critics say the quota is used to place loyalists of Hasina’s Awami League in public jobs.
The Supreme Court on Sunday reduced the number of reserved jobs but did not accept the protesters’ demand to abolish reservation completely.
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 the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
