DHAKA (AFP): Bangladesh went into a nationwide communications blackout on Friday following clashes between police and students that have killed dozens of people in the past few days.
The government announced on Thursday night it was shutting down mobile internet for security reasons as student protestors demanding the removal of government employment quotas were on the streets after authorities sealed their campuses and dorms and suspended all educational institutions.
On Friday morning, television news channels were off air, and most online news websites could not be opened. Morning headlines and top stories in local dailies estimated that between 24 and 37 people had been killed and hundreds of others injured since the clashes broke out on Sunday between the students, government supporters and security forces.
The actual death toll is feared to be higher, as already on Thursday, students reported 39 deaths. But on Friday, neither student representatives nor local hospital authorities could be reached for comment due to the blackout. Riot police and at least 2,400 troops from the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh were deployed in the capital, where Dhaka Metropolitan Police banned all gatherings. The forces on the ground were assisted by monitoring helicopters of the Rapid Action Battalion — a counterterrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police.
University students have been demonstrating on campuses since the beginning of July against a rule that reserves a bulk of government jobs for the descendants of those who fought in the country’s 1971 liberation war. The quota system was abolished by the government after student protests in 2018, but the High Court reinstated it in June, triggering protests.
Under the quota system, 56 percent of public service jobs are reserved for specific groups, including women, marginalized communities and children and grandchildren of freedom fighters — for whom the government earmarks 30 percent of the posts. More than a fourth of Bangladesh’s 170 million population were people aged between 15 and 29. The unemployment rate is the highest in this group, contributing 83 percent of the total unemployed people in the country.
The quotas for well-paid government jobs hit them directly. Dr. Rasheda Rawnak Khan, associate professor at Dhaka University, said the issue could have been solved long before the outbreak of the ongoing protests. “It should have been solved in a prompt manner as the matter is related to the youths,” she told Arab News.
“Probably the state here failed to read the pulses of the youth.” Bangladesh woke Friday to survey destruction left by the deadliest day of ongoing student protests so far, which saw government buildings torched by demonstrators and a nationwide internet blackout put into effect. This week’s unrest has killed at least 39 people including 32 on Thursday, with the toll expected to rise further after reports of clashes in nearly half of the country’s 64 districts.
A police statement issued after a near-total shutdown of the nation’s internet said protesters had torched, vandalised and carried out “destructive activities” on numerous police and government offices. Among them was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of incensed students stormed the premises and set fire to a building.
“About 100 policemen were injured in the clashes yesterday,” Faruk Hossain, a spokesman for the capital’s police force, told AFP. “Around 50 police booths were burnt”. The police statement said that if the destruction continued, they would “be forced to make maximum use of law”.
Police fire was the cause of at least two-thirds of deaths reported so far, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff. At least 26 districts around the country reported clashes on Thursday, broadcaster Independent Television reported. The network said more than 700 had been wounded through the day including 104 police officers and 30 journalists.
Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan. Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Hasina’s government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists. Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police step up efforts to bring the deteriorating law and order situation under control.
Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo in Norway, told AFP Thursday that the protests had grown into a wider expression of discontent with Hasina’s autocratic rule. “They are protesting against the repressive nature of the state,” he told AFP. “The students are in fact calling her a dictator.” Students have vowed to continue their campaign despite Hasina giving a national address on the now-offline state broadcaster seeking to calm the situation.
“Our first demand is that the prime minister must apologise to us,” protester Bidisha Rimjhim, 18, told AFP on Thursday. “Secondly, justice must be ensured for our killed brothers,” she added. London-based watchdog Netblocks said Friday that a “nation-scale” internet shutdown remained in effect. “The disruption prevents families from contacting each other and stifles efforts to document human rights violations,” it wrote in a social media post on X.
