A worried calm prevailed in the capital of Bangladesh Dhaka on the third day of a national curfew on Monday, while the authorities said they had arrested hundreds of people for their alleged involvement in violence during demonstrations that became fatal last week.
Although there were no street protests or conflicts, two people seriously injured in previous violence died of their injuries on Monday.
This made the number of deaths at least 138 in a week of street clashes which began as demonstrations against a system of discriminatory quotas for government jobs and became broader agitation against the 15 years of power of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Hasina and other representatives of the government blamed opposition groups for the deadly violence last week, according to images of Channel 24 distributed by the Reuters news agency.
But the university students, who started demonstrations after the quotas were reinstated by a court last month, allegedly alleged that he was a member of the Awami League student in Hasina, helped by the police, who prompted the clashes.
The spokesman for the United States Department of State Matthew Miller said on Monday that the United States condemned the “reported shooting orders” which were part of a repression against the demonstrations.
“The United States is concerned with reports on current telecommunications disturbances in Bangladesh,” Miller told journalists, referring to the closure of the Internet and the mobile connectivity imposed by the State which continued on Monday, Reuters reported.
Habibur Rahman, the Dhaka metropolitan police commissioner, told journalists on Monday that the police arrested more than 600 people, mainly in Dacca, for violent acts during demonstrations.
A senior official of the Principalist Nationalist Party of the Bangladesh of the opposition, Zahir Uddin Swappon, and a leader of the minor party, on Tuesdayal Tarek Rahman, was arrested on Monday.
Tarek’s wife Tamanna Ferdosi Sikha told Benarnews that a joint police force, border guard and soldiers entered their house around 2:30 am and picked up Tarek and her brother.
“They entered a computer and other digital devices from our home,” she said.
Students give a 48 -hour ultimatum
After the curfew that was imposed on Friday was indefinitely extended on Sunday, the Bangladesh army chief Waker-Uzaman, journalists told the more time to “normalize” the situation.
“Many properties of the state have been vandalized … There are many ways to stage demonstrations,” he said on Monday. “But the realization of attacks against the properties of the state is not wise.”
Several buildings and properties of the government were burnt down last week during clashes, including the state diffuser and a station.
Protestant students were not appeased by the Supreme Court putting most quotas in public service jobs on Sunday.
The court lowered the number of jobs reserved at 7%, compared to 56%. A key board of the quota system was the public service job reserve for parents of those who fought in the Bangladesh war of independence in 1971.
Students also demanded that the Internet be restored and that the security forces be withdrawn from university campuses.
“We issue an ultimatum … 48 hours to stop digital repression and restore internet connectivity,” the association Press Hasnat Abdullah, coordinator of the anti-discrimination movement, told the anti-discrimination movement.
“Within 48 hours, all members of the application of laws deployed in different campuses must be withdrawn, the dormitories must reopen and the measures must be taken so that the students can return to the [residence] Halls. “”
AIF Nazrul, professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Dacca, said that Protestant students would only be satisfied if the authorities apologize for illegal actions, arresting armed executives of student and young members of the Awami League in power and arrested the police and members of the rapid action battalion who shot civilians without arms.
“More than 150 people died and thousands of demonstrators were injured in the uprising. I think the demonstration will not end with the judgment of the Supreme Court. The people of Bangladesh are not so stupid,” he told Benarnews.
The Battalion of Rapid Action has previously been accused of forced disappearances, extrajudicial murders and the use of torture and the United States has imposed financial sanctions for “serious human rights violations”.
![Two automobile pushes are seen on an otherwise empty road during a national curfew in the Jatrabari region in the capital of Bangladesh, Dacca, on July 22, 2024. [Jibon Ahmed/BenarNews]](https://www.rfa.org/resizer/v2/LTON556LLV5ZZYYNVV4IGFTYIE.jpg?auth=318e2d00111ff5901f5cd167a8aa04338a72df591db710c91188285df6b4f756&width=800&height=533)
Some students also ask Hasina to apologize or to withdraw her comments a week ago when she said that anti-quota demonstrators applied to employees with Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh war fought to separate from this nation.
The demonstrations spread after Hasina’s comments.
Reuters’ video showed him to say to business leaders at a meeting of his Dacca office that opposition forces were responsible for vandalism, criminal fire and murders during demonstrations.
Hasina advisor Salman F. Rahman said the student movement had been diverted by people who wanted to overthrow the government.
“There was a big plot, they tried to ensure the fall of the government,” said Rahman.
Another member of the Hasina administration, Nasrul Hamid, Minister of State for Electricity and Energy, said the clashes had caused $ 85 million in damages.
“We are trying to identify the people involved in such a sabotage and they must be prosecuted,” he said.
Meanwhile, the average Bangladais bear the weight of the curfew, according to their accounts and those of vegetable, fruit and meat sellers.
Abdul Baten, which operates a clothing plant in an area called Mirpur-11, told Benarnews that the prices of basic foods had increased.
“We mainly depend on the potato, eggs, skin and the chicken leg of flesh and lenses. A dozen eggs now cost 160 Taka, against 135,” he said.
The problem, says the vegetable merchant Nur Mohammad, is that no product arrives in Dhaka.
“There is an abundant supply of vegetables outside of Dhaka. But due to the curfew, it cannot be transported here,” he told Benarnews.
“Unless the supply chain is restored, prices will not drop,” said the merchant in the Mirpur-6 region.
Bangladesh bus president Owners’ Association, Ramesh Ghosh, said thousands of trucks carrying goods in Dhaka cannot enter the capital.
“Each day, at least 3,000 trucks with vegetables, chicken, eggs and fish enter the Dhaka of all of Bangladesh. But now problems with the entry points … have stopped the movements of cargo trucks,” he told Benarnews.
“This must affect consumers at the end, creating a crisis in the supply of essential elements.”
Benarnews is an online press organization affiliated with the FRG.