Protesters say the quota system benefits the children of pro-government groups and demand it be eliminated.
Violent clashes between people loyal to Bangladesh’s ruling party and demonstrators protesting job quotas for coveted public jobs have injured at least 100 people, according to police.
The quota system reserves more than half of high-paying civil service positions, totaling hundreds of thousands of public jobs, for specific groups, including children of combatants in the country’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Critics say the system benefits children from pro-government groups that support Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won her fourth consecutive term in January’s general elections, which were boycotted by the opposition.
Bangladesh’s top court last week temporarily suspended the quotas, but protesters have vowed to continue their demonstrations until the parts of the scheme they oppose are completely eliminated.
Police and witnesses said hundreds of old-fashioned protesters and students supporting the ruling Awami League party fought for hours on Monday on the Dhaka University campus, throwing stones, fighting with sticks and beating each other with iron bars.
Some carried machetes while others threw Molotov cocktails, witnesses said in a report by the AFP news agency. “They clashed with sticks and threw stones at each other,” police officer Mostajirur Rahman told AFP.
Nahid Islam, national coordinator of the anti-quota protests, said his “peaceful procession” was attacked by people carrying sticks, sticks and stones. “They beat our protesters. At least 150 students were injured, including 30 women, and the conditions of 20 students are serious,” he said.
Injured student Shahinur Shumi, 26, said the protesters were caught off guard.
“We were carrying out our procession peacefully,” she said from her hospital bed at Dhaka Medical Hospital. “Suddenly, the Chhatra League [ruling party’s student wing] They attacked us with sticks, machetes, iron bars and bricks.”
‘Reform of the quota system’
Local media reports said protests by thousands of students in Bangladesh began on Sunday night and continued until Monday after Hasina said quotas were a matter for the high court.
Hasina also compared the protesters to Razakar fighters, who collaborated with the Pakistani army during the war of independence.
Students marched on Sunday night at a dozen universities and continued until Monday morning, protesting Hasina’s comments and the quota system.
Police said on Monday that hundreds of old-fashioned students from several private universities joined protests in Dhaka and disrupted traffic near the US embassy for more than four hours.
“About 200 students crouched down and stood on the road,” deputy police commissioner Hasanuzzaman Molla told AFP.
During a press conference at her official residence, Hasina, 76, criticized those who oppose quotas for descendants of the country’s freedom fighters, according to local media reports.
But protesting students said only quotas supporting ethnic minorities and people with disabilities – which set aside 6 percent of public jobs – should remain.
“We want a reform of the quota system,” said a student at Dhaka University, asking not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
