The protests intensified on Sunday night after Sheikh Hasina refused to meet the students’ demands. (File)
Dhaka:
More than 100 students were injured in Bangladesh on Monday in clashes between those protesting the end of a quota system for public jobs and others loyal to the ruling party, police and witnesses said.
The protests mark the first significant demonstrations Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has faced since winning a fourth consecutive term in a January election boycotted by the main opposition.
Thousands of anti-quota protesters and members of the student wing of Hasina’s Awami League threw stones and fought each other with sticks and iron bars at universities across the country, including Dhaka, police and witnesses said.
Students were injured on several campuses, law enforcement officials said.
Protesters have called for continued marches and rallies across the country to press their demands.
“This is more than just a student movement. To suppress this movement, incitement was carried out from the highest levels of government. Therefore, ordinary people have to take to the streets,” said Nahid Islam, the coordinator of the anti-student protests. quotas. .
Protests began earlier this month after the Supreme Court ordered the government to restore 30% employment quotas for descendants of freedom fighters. They continued despite Bangladesh’s top court suspending that order for a month last week.
Protests intensified on Sunday night after Hasina refused to meet students’ demands, saying the matter was now in court.
Hasina said those who oppose employment quotas for relatives of freedom fighters are the ‘Razakars’, who collaborated with the Pakistani army during the 1971 War of Independence. Dhaka University campus at midnight to protest.
“An attempt is being made to transform the anti-quota movement into an anti-state movement by using the emotions of young students,” said Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud. “The government will not allow an unstable situation to develop.”
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