Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner chosen to lead an interim government in Bangladesh, urged calm as he boarded a flight to return home, a day before his new government was sworn in to replace ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Yunus, 84, was chosen by President Mohammed Shahabuddin to lead the new interim government, a key demand of student protesters whose uprising led Hasina, 76, to flee to India on Monday.
“I’m looking forward to coming home, seeing what’s going on and how we can organize ourselves to get out of the trouble we’re in,” he told reporters before boarding a flight at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to Dubai. , where it would connect. to Dhaka.
“I fervently appeal to everyone to remain calm. Please avoid all types of violence,” said Yunus, an economist and banker who received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for founding a pioneering bank to combat poverty with small loans to the general population.
He has been hailed for lifting thousands of people out of poverty through the Grameen Bank, which he founded in 1983, which provides small loans to businesspeople who would not qualify for regular bank loans.
Bangladesh’s military chief said on Wednesday that the interim government led by Yunus would take office on Thursday night after he returns from Paris to take over the government and try to restore stability.
General Waker-Uz-Zaman said in a televised speech on Wednesday afternoon that those responsible for the violence since Hasina’s resignation would be brought to justice.
The military chief, accompanied by the heads of the Navy and Air Force, said he spoke with Yunus and would receive him at the airport on Thursday.
Zaman said he is hopeful that Yunus will take the situation to a “beautiful democratic” process.
Hasina, who had been in power since 2009, resigned on Monday as hundreds of thousands of people, most of them students, flooded the streets of Dhaka demanding she step down.
Protests that began over a controversial public office quota quickly turned into a call to end Hasina’s 15-year rule, which many in the country called “autocratic.”
More than 400 people were killed during weeks of clashes between protesters and security forces, as well as members of Hasina’s Awami League party.
President Shahabuddin also announced on Wednesday the appointment of a new police chief, Mohammad Mainul Islam, to replace Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun as part of a top-level security shake-up that also included a new head of the intelligence monitoring agency. technique and changes among senior army officers.
Following his appointment, Islam apologized for officers’ conduct during the deadly protests and promised an “impartial” investigation into the killings.
“We are committed to conducting a fair and impartial investigation into all recent killings of students, ordinary people and police,” he told reporters.
“In the current protests… our previous officials were not able to carry out their duties in accordance with the expectations of their compatriots,” he added.
“I, as the police chief, apologize on behalf of the Bangladesh Police for this.”
He also said he asked police units to end the strike and return to work on Thursday, when Yunus will return to the country to lead the interim government.
Also on Wednesday, the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), buoyed by the release of its chief and former prime minister Khaleda Zia from house arrest on Tuesday, drew hundreds of people to a rally in Dhaka and demanded elections within three months.
In her first public speech since 2018, when she was convicted on corruption charges and jailed, Zia appealed to everyone not to follow Bangladesh’s path of destruction, as she addressed her supporters from a hospital bed at a rally in Dhaka.
“Without destruction, without anger and without revenge, we need love and peace to rebuild our country,” said Zia, 78, via videolink.
“I have been released now. I want to thank the brave people who fought a life-and-death struggle to make the impossible possible,” she said.
“This victory brings us a new possibility of returning from the rubble of plunder, corruption and bad politics. We need to reform this country as a prosperous country.”
Meanwhile, before Yunus arrived, a court in Bangladesh overturned his conviction in a labor case in which he was sentenced to six months in prison in January. Yunus called her accusation political, part of a campaign by Hasina to suppress dissent.
“We will make the most of our new victory,” he said in a statement before departing Paris, where he was receiving medical treatment while out on bail.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
