Bangladesh violence: As many as 50 people have been killed in a fresh spell of agitation in Bangladesh as TV news channels went off the air and telecommunications were widely disrupted across the nation amid violent student protests against quotas in government jobs that plunged the South Asian country into chaos this week. Three people died on Friday in fresh protests as authorities cut some mobile internet services to try to quell the unrest.
Hundreds of people were injured as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up groups of protesters, who torched vehicles, police posts and other establishments, witnesses said. The nationwide agitation, the biggest since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was reelected earlier this year, saw the intervention of the Army to help "maintain order". Police and security officials fired bullets and tear gas at protesters and banned all gatherings in the capital on Friday as paramilitary forces were spread across the country.
In a dramatic escalation, protesters in Bangladesh set fire to several government buildings, including the headquarters of the state television network, trapping numerous individuals inside the blazing building. Bangladesh's information minister told the BBC that broadcasts had been stopped and most employees had left the building in the capital.
Telecommunications disrupted, websites hacked
Television news channels in Bangladesh were off the air and telecommunications were widely disrupted on Friday amid mostly deserted streets in Bangladesh on Friday following the violence seen on the previous day. According to outage monitor NetBlocks, Bangladesh was plunged into a "near-total" internet shutdown as night fell, with telephone and internet calls disrupted.
There was fresh violence in some parts of the country on Friday and police were using tear gas to disperse protesters. Web sites of several Bangladesh-based newspapers were not updating on Friday morning and their social media handles were also not active. There was no mobile data or broadband on Friday morning, a Reuters photographer in Dhaka said.
News television channels and state broadcaster BTV were off the air while entertainment channels continued normal transmission. Some news channels displayed a message which said they were not able to broadcast due to technical reasons and that programming would be back soon, as per a witness.
Furthermore, the official web sites of the Bangladesh central bank, the prime minister's office and police appeared to have been hacked by a group calling itself "THE R3SISTANC3". “Operation HuntDown, Stop Killing Students,” it said in identical messages on both sites, adding in bright red font: "It's not a protest anymore, it's a war now.”
What triggered the protests?
The nationwide agitation, the biggest since Hasina was re-elected earlier this year, has been fuelled by high youth unemployment. Protesters are demanding the state stop setting aside 30 per cent of government jobs for the families of people who fought in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. The demonstrations started last month after the High Court reinstated a quota system for government jobs, overturning a 2018 decision by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government to scrap it.
The protesters have argued that the quota system is beneficial for supporters of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, which led the independence movement and called it a "discriminatory" move. Nearly 32 million young Bangladeshis are unemployed or without education out of a total population of 170 million people. Experts also attribute the unrest to stagnant job growth in the private sector, making public sector jobs, with their accompanying regular wage hikes and privileges, very attractive.
Serious challenge for Hasina
To make matters worse, Hasina refused meet the students' demands and used the term 'razakar' (volunteers) - a term used for those who allegedly collaborated with the Pakistani army during the 1971 war that perpetrated some of the worst atrocities during the war. The protests turned violent this week following clashes between thousands of anti-quota demonstrators and members of the student wing of Hasina's Awami League party.
The capital's main university campus had been the site of the worst of the nationwide protests, but on Thursday there were stronger demonstrations in other pockets of the city. Hasina's government has appealed against the June verdict on quotas and the Supreme Court suspended the high court order, setting a date of August 7 to hear the government’s appeal.
The protests are the first challenge to Hasina's government since she won a fourth consecutive term in January in elections boycotted by the main opposition. She has condemned the loss of lives and called for patience until the Supreme Court delivers its verdict, but the demonstrators refused.
(with inputs from Reuters)
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