Bangladeshi student group, Students Against Discrimination, has vowed to resume protests that recently led to a deadly police crackdown and nationwide unrest unless several of their leaders are released from custody by Sunday. The violence from last week’s demonstrations resulted in at least 205 deaths, according to an AFP tally of police and hospital data, marking one of the most significant upheavals during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Despite the ongoing army patrols and a nationwide curfew that remain in effect more than a week after their imposition, the police have detained thousands of protesters, including at least half a dozen student leaders. The members of Students Against Discrimination, whose campaign against civil service hiring rules ignited the unrest, have announced their intention to end their weeklong protest moratorium.
Abdul Hannan Masud, the group’s spokesperson, stated during an online briefing late Saturday that their chief Nahid Islam and other detained leaders “should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn.” Masud, who did not disclose his location due to fears of arrest, also demanded “visible actions” against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters. He warned that failure to meet these demands would force the group to “launch tough protests” from Monday.
Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were forcibly removed from a hospital in the capital Dhaka on Friday by plainclothes detectives. Islam had previously informed AFP that he was receiving treatment for injuries sustained during an earlier detention and expressed fear for his life. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters on Friday that the trio were taken into custody for their own safety but did not confirm if they had been formally arrested.
Police reported on Sunday that detectives had detained two additional individuals, while a Students Against Discrimination activist informed AFP that a third person had been taken into custody that morning. According to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s largest daily newspaper, at least 9,000 people have been arrested nationwide since the unrest began.
The protests erupted this month in response to the reintroduction of a quota scheme that reserves more than half of all government jobs for certain candidates. This move has deeply upset graduates facing an acute employment crisis, with government figures indicating that around 18 million young Bangladeshis are currently unemployed. Critics argue that the quota system is used to fill public jobs with loyalists to the ruling Awami League.
Although the Supreme Court reduced the number of reserved jobs last week, it did not fully meet the protesters’ demands to abolish the quotas entirely. Prime Minister Hasina, who has ruled Bangladesh since 2009, secured her fourth consecutive election victory in January after a vote that critics claim lacked genuine opposition.
