Bangladesh soldiers patrolled deserted streets of the capital Dhaka on Saturday and set up road blockades during a curfew imposed to break up deadly student-led protests against government job reservations that have left at least 110 people dead this week.
Internet and text messaging services have been suspended since Thursday, cutting the country off from the rest of the world, as police crackdown on protests that continue despite a ban on public gatherings.
Foreign telephone calls mostly failed to connect, while the websites of Bangladesh-based media organisations were not updated and their social media handles remained inactive.
“Cutting off a country of nearly 170 million people from the internet is a drastic move like we haven’t seen since the Egyptian revolution of 2011,” said John Heidemann, chief scientist for the Networking and Cybersecurity Division at USC Viterbi’s Information Sciences Institute.
Besides the deaths, thousands have also been injured in the clashes, according to figures from hospitals across Bangladesh. Dhaka Medical College Hospital received 27 bodies between 5 pm and 7 pm (1100-1200 GMT) on Friday.
For the past five days, police have been firing tear gas shells and hurling sound grenades to disperse protesters as they clashed with security personnel, hurling bricks and setting vehicles on fire.
The protests – the biggest since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was re-elected for a fourth term this year – have also been fuelled by high unemployment among young people, who make up about a fifth of the South Asian country’s 170 million population.
As the death toll rose and the inability of police and other security forces to stop the protests, the Hasina government imposed a national curfew and deployed the military.
The curfew was relaxed for two hours from noon on Saturday to allow people to shop and carry out other tasks, television channels reported. It will continue until 10 am (0400 GMT) on Sunday, when the government will assess the situation and decide on further action, according to reports.
TV footage showed identity cards of those coming out on the streets being checked by army personnel at different check points. Soldiers set up roadblocks and bunkers using sandbags at strategic locations in Dhaka, which is the epicentre of the anti-reservation protests.
The nationwide unrest was sparked by student anger against controversial quotas in government jobs, including 30% reservation for families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan.
The Hasina government abolished the quota system in 2018, but a court reinstated it last month. The state appealed against the reinstatement and the Supreme Court suspended it for a month, with the case to be heard on August 7.
TV channels quoted police as saying that on Friday protesters stormed a prison in Dhaka’s central district Narsingdi, freeing more than 850 prisoners and setting the prison on fire. Sporadic incidents of arson were also reported in some parts of the country on Saturday.
Hasina cancelled plans to go on diplomatic visits to Spain and Brazil on Sunday because of the protests, Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud’s office said.
Tarique Rahman, the exiled acting president of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, said several opposition party leaders, activists and student protesters had been arrested. Police arrested Nahid Islam, a key coordinator of the student movement, at 2 a.m. on Saturday, protesters said in a message.
Reuters could not independently confirm the arrests.
Neighbouring India said around 1,000 Indian students had returned home through various ports and flights since the violence began.
International rights groups have criticised the internet ban and the actions of security forces. The European Union said it was deeply concerned by the violence and loss of life.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
