Renewed anti-gov’t protests leave dozens dead, hundreds injured

DHAKA (AP):

Dozens of people were killed and hundreds 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 75 people, including at least 14 police officers, died in the violence. Channel 24 reported at least 72 deaths.

The military announced that a new curfew, including in the capital, Dhaka, and other divisional and district headquarters, was in effect on Sunday evening for an indefinite period. The government had earlier imposed a curfew, with some exceptions in Dhaka and elsewhere.

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 on 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.

PREVENT VIOLENCE

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

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 the 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 vandalising 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, seen in TV footage.

In Dhaka’s Uttara neighbourhood, 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 least 20 people were hit by bullets in the area.

Over 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, the 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.

The protests began last month as students demanded an end to a quota system that reserved 30 per cent of government jobs for the families of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence against Pakistan in 1971.