DHAKA: A Bangladeshi student group that led demonstrations that turned deadly on Monday suspended protests for 48 hours, with its leader saying it did not want reforms “at the cost of so much blood”.
What began as a protest against a politicized recruitment quota for government jobs turned out to be the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.
Curfews have been imposed and soldiers are patrolling cities in the South Asian country, while a nationwide internet blackout since Thursday has severely restricted the flow of information to the outside world.
“We are suspending the shutdown protest for 48 hours,” Nahid Islam, a top leader of the main protest organizer Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed.
He said that he was being treated for his injuries after being beaten up by people on the charge of being a secret policeman.
“We demand that the government during this period withdraw the curfew, restore the internet and stop targeting student protesters.”
On Sunday, the Supreme Court reversed the number of jobs reserved for specific groups, including descendants of “freedom fighters” from Bangladesh's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
“We have started this movement for quota reform,” said Islam.
“But we don't want quota reform at so much blood, so much killing, so much loss of life and property.”
Police and hospitals reported at least 163 people died in the clashes, including several police officers, according to AFP.
Sporadic violence continued on Monday, with four people being brought to Dhaka Medical College Hospital with gunshot wounds, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Government officials have repeatedly blamed protesters and the opposition for the unrest.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Farooq Hussain told AFP that “at least 532” people, including some leaders of the opposition Bangladesh National Party, had been arrested in the capital since the protests began.
Ali Riaz, a politics professor and leading Bangladesh expert at Illinois State University, described the violence as “the worst massacre by any regime since independence.”
“The atrocities of the past days show that the regime is completely dependent on brute force and has no regard for people's lives,” he told AFP.
“These indiscriminate killings cannot be washed away by court decisions or government announcements.”
Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus urged “world leaders and the United Nations to do everything within their power to end the violence.”
“There must be an investigation into the murders that have already taken place,” the 83-year-old said in a statement, his first public comments since the unrest began.
The respected economist is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering microfinance bank but earned the enmity of Hasina, who accused him of “sucking the blood” of the poor.
Yunus said, “Bangladesh is stuck in a crisis which seems to be getting worse day by day. “Among the victims are high school students.”
Diplomats in Dhaka questioned the Bangladeshi authorities' deadly response to the demonstration.
Foreign Minister Hassan Mahmoud summoned the ambassadors for a briefing on Sunday and showed them a 15-minute video that focused on the damage caused by the protesters, the source said.
According to a senior diplomatic official, US Ambassador Peter Haas told Mahmoud that he was presenting a one-sided version of events.
“I'm surprised you didn't show footage of police firing on unarmed protesters,” the source told Haas to the minister.
A US embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the ambassador's comments.
The diplomatic source added that Mahmoud did not respond to the UN representative's questions about the alleged use of UN-marked armored personnel carriers and helicopters to quell the demonstrations.
Bangladesh is a major contributor to UN peacekeeping operations around the world – earning significant revenue from its efforts – and has UN-marked equipment in its military inventories.
With around 18 million youth out of work in Bangladesh, according to government figures, the re-introduction of the quota scheme has deeply upset graduates who are facing an acute employment crisis.
The Supreme Court decision reduced the number of reserved jobs from 56 percent of all posts to 7 percent, most of which will be reserved for the children and grandchildren of “freedom fighters” of the 1971 war.
93 per cent of the jobs will be given on the basis of merit, but the decision rejected the demands of the protesters to scrap the “freedom fighter” category altogether.
Critics say quotas are used to pool public jobs with loyalists of Hasina's ruling Awami League.
The opposition has accused his government of bending the judiciary to its will.
Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January without real opposition.
His government has also been accused of abusing state institutions by rights groups to seize power and ousting dissent, including extrajudicial killings of opposition activists.
