More than 100 students were injured on Monday in clashes between students protesting against the abolition of the quota system in government jobs and others loyal to the ruling party in Bangladesh, police and witnesses said.
The protests are the first significant demonstrations for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina since she won a fourth consecutive term in January elections boycotted by the main opposition.
Thousands of anti-reservation protesters and members of the student wing of Hasina’s Awami League pelted stones and attacked each other with sticks and iron rods at universities across the country, including Dhaka, police and witnesses said.
Police officials said students were injured in several campuses.
Protesters called for continued marches and rallies across the country to press their demands.
Nahid Islam, coordinator of the anti-reservation protests, said, “This is not just a student movement. There are attempts of incitement from the top level of the government to suppress this movement. That is why the common people are forced to take to the streets.”
The protests began earlier this month after the high court ordered the government to restore a 30% job quota for descendants of freedom fighters. They continue despite Bangladesh’s top court suspending that order for a month last week.
The protests intensified on Sunday night when Hasina refused to meet the students’ demands and said the issue was now in court.
Hasina said those opposing job quotas for relatives of freedom fighters were ‘Razakars’ who had collaborated with the Pakistan Army during the 1971 independence war. Her comments prompted thousands of students to come out of their hostels at midnight to protest on the Dhaka University campus.
“Attempts are being made to turn the anti-quota movement into an anti-state movement by using the emotions of young students,” Foreign Minister Hassan Mahmood said. “The government will not allow a volatile situation to develop.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
