Bangladesh PM Hasina calls students ‘criminals;’ army symbolises people: Chief

Nearly 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured on Sunday as renewed anti-government protests swept across Bangladesh, with protesters calling for the prime minister to resign and the prime minister accusing them of “sabotage” and cutting off mobile internet in a bid to quell the unrest.

The country’s leading Bengali-language daily newspaper, Prothom Alo, said at least 95 people, including at least 14 police officers, died in the violence. Channel 24 reported at least 85 deaths.

The military announced that a new curfew, including in the capital, Dhaka, and other divisional and district headquarters, was in effect Sunday evening for an indefinite period.

Some former military officers have joined the student movement and ex-army chief General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan turned his Facebook profile picture red in a show of support.

“We call on the incumbent government to withdraw the armed forces from the street immediately,” Bhuiyan told reporters in a joint statement alongside other senior ex-officers, condemning “egregious killings, torture, disappearances and mass arrests.”

“Those who are responsible for pushing people of this country to a state of such an extreme misery will have to be brought to justice,” he said.

Current army chief Waker-uz-Zaman told officers at military headquarters in Dhaka on Saturday the “Bangladesh Army is the symbol of trust of the people.”

“It always stood by the people and will do so for the sake of people and in any need of the state,” he said, according to an army statement, which gave no further details and did not say explicitly whether the army backed the protests.

Protesters wave national flags as they stand over the Anti Terrorism Raju Memorial Sculpture in Dhaka. AFP

Demonstrators are demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation following protests last month that began with students calling for an end to a quota system for government jobs. Those demonstrations escalated into violence that left more than 200 dead.

As the renewed violence raged, Hasina said the protesters who engaged in “sabotage” and destruction were no longer students but criminals, and she said the people should deal with them with iron hands.

The ruling Awami League party said the demand for Hasina’s resignation showed that the protests have been taken over by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the now-banned Jamaat-e-Islami party.

Also Sunday, the government announced a holiday from Monday to Wednesday. Courts were to be closed indefinitely. Mobile internet service was cut off, and Facebook and messaging apps, including WhatsApp, were inaccessible.

Junior Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat said on Sunday that the services were severed to help prevent violence.

Students march to demand justice for the victims killed in recent countrywide violence in Dhaka. AFP

At least 11,000 people have been arrested in recent weeks. The unrest has also resulted in the closure of schools and universities across the country, and authorities at one point imposed a shoot-on-sight curfew.

Protesters called for a “non-cooperation” effort, urging people not to pay taxes or utility bills and not to show up for work on Sunday, a working day in Bangladesh. Offices, banks and factories opened, but commuters in Dhaka and other cities faced challenges getting to work.

The demonstrators attacked Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, a major public hospital in Dhaka’s Shahbagh area, torching several vehicles.

Video footage showed protesters vandalizing a prison van in the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court in Dhaka. Other videos showed police opening fire on the crowds with bullets, rubber bullets and tear gas. The protesters set fire to vehicles and the ruling party’s offices. Some carried sharp weapons and sticks, according to TV footage.

Buses are seen on fire at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University premises in Dhaka. AFP

In Dhaka’s Uttara neighborhood, police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of people who blocked a major highway. Protesters attacked homes and vandalised a community welfare office in the area, where hundreds of ruling party activists took up positions. Some crude bombs were detonated, and gunshots were heard, witnesses said. At east 20 people were hit by bullets in the area.

At least 18 people were killed in the northwestern district of Sirajganj. That figure included 13 police officers who died after a police station was attacked by protesters, according to police headquarters in Dhaka. Another officer was killed in the eastern district of Cumilla, police said. Five people died in the Feni district in southeast Bangladesh as Hasina’s supporters clashed with protesters.

Asif Iqbal, a resident medical officer at a state-run hospital in Feni, told reporters that they had five bodies at the hospital, all of them hit by bullets. It was not clear if they were protesters or ruling party activists.

In Munshiganj district near Dhaka, hospital official Abu Hena said four people were declared dead after being rushed to a hospital.

Jamuna TV station reported that violent clashes took place across more than a dozen districts, including Chattogram, Bogura, Magura, Rangpur, Kishoreganj and Sirajganj, where protesters backed by the country’s main opposition party clashed with police and the activists of the ruling Awami League party and its associated bodies.

Associated Press