Bangladesh Students Vow to Resume Protests Unless Leaders Freed

AFP/APP

Dhaka: A Bangladeshi student group has vowed to resume protests, which previously led to a violent police crackdown and nationwide unrest, unless several of their leaders are released from custody by Sunday.

Last week’s violence resulted in at least 205 deaths, according to an AFP count of police and hospital data. This has become one of the most significant upheavals during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.

Army patrols and a nationwide curfew are still in effect more than a week after their imposition, and thousands of protesters, including at least six student leaders, have been detained in a police dragnet.

Members of the Students Against Discrimination group, which sparked the unrest with their campaign against civil service job quotas, have announced they will end their week-long protest moratorium. 

Abdul Hannan Masud, a spokesperson for the group, demanded the release of their chief, Nahid Islam, and other leaders, as well as the withdrawal of charges against them. Masud, speaking from hiding, also called for “visible actions” against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters, threatening renewed and intensified protests if these demands are not met.

Islam and two other senior members of the group were forcibly discharged from a hospital in Dhaka on Friday and taken away by plainclothes detectives. Earlier in the week, Islam had reported to AFP that he was receiving treatment for injuries sustained during a previous detention and expressed fear for his life.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan stated that the trio was taken into custody for their own safety but did not confirm if they had been formally arrested.

Police reported that detectives had taken two additional individuals into custody, with a third being detained on Sunday morning. According to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s largest daily newspaper, at least 9,000 people have been arrested nationwide since the unrest began.

While the curfew remains in force, it has been gradually eased over the week, signaling the Hasina government’s confidence in restoring order. Bangladesh’s mobile internet network was restored in the afternoon after an 11-day blackout, though fixed-line broadband connections had been reinstated earlier.

A small street rally in Dhaka on Sunday, calling for Hasina’s resignation, was quickly dispersed by police.

Jobs Crisis

The protests began over the reintroduction of a quota scheme reserving more than half of all government jobs for specific groups.

With around 18 million young Bangladeshis unemployed, this move has aggravated graduates facing severe employment challenges. Critics argue that the quota system is used to populate public jobs with loyalists of the ruling Awami League.

While the Supreme Court reduced the number of reserved jobs last week, it did not fully meet the protesters’ demands to eliminate the quotas entirely. 

Hasina, who has been in power since 2009, won her fourth consecutive election in January, a vote that lacked genuine opposition.

Her government faces accusations from rights groups of misusing state institutions to consolidate power and suppress dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists. Protests had remained largely peaceful until recent violent clashes with police and pro-government student groups.