Bangladeshi students set fire to the country’s state television station on Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appeared on the network seeking to calm escalating clashes that have killed at least 25 people.
Hundreds of protesters demanding reform of civil service hiring rules clashed with riot police, who fired rubber bullets at them. The protesters overwhelmed the officers, who retreated to BTV’s headquarters in Dhaka. The enraged crowd then set fire to the network’s reception building and dozens of vehicles parked outside, according to a BTV official who spoke to AFP anonymously.
“Many people are trapped inside,” the broadcaster posted on its Facebook page, adding that the “catastrophic fire” was spreading quickly.
In response to the escalating violence, Hasina’s government ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely, as police increased efforts to restore order.
Prime Minister Hasina appeared on the broadcaster on Wednesday night, condemning the “murder” of protesters and vowing that those responsible would be punished regardless of their political affiliation. Despite her plea for calm, violence intensified as police again attempted to disperse demonstrators with rubber bullets and tear gas.
At least 18 people were killed on Thursday, in addition to the seven killed earlier in the week, according to a tally of casualty figures from hospitals compiled by AFP, with hundreds more wounded. More than two-thirds of the deaths were caused by “non-lethal” police weaponry, based on hospital reports.
Fresh clashes erupted in several cities across Bangladesh throughout the day as riot police confronted protesters, who resumed blockades on roads and highways.
The elite Rapid Action Battalion police force reported that helicopters rescued 60 police officers trapped on the roof of a campus building at Canadian University, the site of some of Thursday’s fiercest clashes in Dhaka. Three students and a rickshaw driver were brought dead to a hospital in the capital, all with rubber bullet injuries, according to Mahfuz Ara Begum, assistant superintendent at Kuwait Moitri Hospital. Over 150 students were also being treated there, mostly for rubber bullet injuries to their eyes.
Other hospitals reported a combined total of 14 deaths to AFP throughout the day, including 10 in Dhaka, two in Chittagong, and two in nearby cities.
The protests began as a demand to end a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan. Critics argue that the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that support Hasina, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her administration has been accused by rights groups of capturing state institutions and stamping out dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists. Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo in Norway, stated that the protests had grown into a broader expression of discontent with Hasina’s autocratic rule. “They are protesting against the repressive nature of the state,” he told AFP. “Protesters are questioning Hasina’s leadership, accusing her of clinging onto power by force. The students are in fact calling her a dictator.”
On Thursday, widespread mobile internet outages were reported across Bangladesh, two days after internet providers cut off access to Facebook—the key organizing platform for the protests. Junior telecommunications minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak told AFP that the government had ordered the network cut off, citing the use of social media to spread “rumours, lies and disinformation.”
Alongside police crackdowns, demonstrators and students allied with the ruling Awami League have clashed on the streets with bricks and bamboo rods. Hasina’s speech did not assign responsibility for the deaths, but hospital authorities and students suggest that at least some fatalities resulted from police use of supposedly non-lethal weapons.
Rights group Amnesty International stated that video evidence from clashes this week showed Bangladeshi security forces using unlawful force. Clashes overnight included a battle on Dhaka’s outskirts between police and over 1,000 protesters who set fire to a roadside toll booth. “We spent the whole night fending off attacks from the protesters,” deputy police commissioner Iqbal Hossain told AFP.
AFP