Dhaka: The Bangladesh government has decided to impose a curfew across the country and deploy the army amid widening student-led protests against government job quotas said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s press secretary, Nayeemul Islam Khan.
Telecommunications were disrupted, and television news channels went off the air, while authorities cut some mobile telephone services to neutralise the protests. Train services had been suspended nationwide as protesters blocked roads and threw bricks at security officials. The death toll had reached 105, according to hospital reports. The U.S. Embassy in Dhaka indicated over 40 deaths and ‘hundreds to possibly thousands’ of injuries across Bangladesh, describing the situation as ‘extremely volatile.’
The protests began over student anger against job quotas that reserve 30 percent of government positions for families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan. The unrest is also driven by high unemployment among young people, who are nearly a fifth of the country’s 170 million population.
International rights groups criticised the suspension of services and the actions of security forces. The European Union expressed deep concern over the violence and loss of life, urging that further violence be averted and a peaceful resolution be found as fast as possible, underpinned by the rule of law and democratic freedoms.
India stated that the unrest was an internal matter for Bangladesh and that all 15,000 Indians in the country were safe, with Indian students returning by road. Violence linked to the protests also erupted in London, which hosts a large Bangladeshi population, where police had to suppress clashes between large groups of men in the east of the British capital.
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