A Bangladeshi student group has vowed to resume protests if several of its leaders are not released from detention on Sunday, which sparked a deadly police crackdown and nationwide unrest.
At least 205 people were killed in last week’s violence, one of the biggest upheavals of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure, according to an AFP count based on police and hospital figures.
Army patrols and a nationwide curfew continue more than a week after it was imposed, and police have arrested thousands of protesters, including at least a half-dozen student leaders.
Members of Students Against Discrimination, whose campaign against civil service recruitment rules sparked the unrest, said they would call off their week-long protests.
Abdul Hannan Masood told reporters in an online briefing late Saturday that the group’s chief Nahid Islam and others “should be released and cases against them withdrawn.”
Masood did not reveal his location as he was hiding from the authorities, and also demanded that “clear action” be taken against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.
“Otherwise, the students will be forced to launch strong protests from Monday against discrimination,” he said.
Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were forcibly discharged from a hospital in the capital Dhaka on Friday and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.
Earlier in the week, Islam told AFP he was in hospital being treated for injuries he suffered during an earlier detention by police, and said he feared for his life.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters on Friday that the three had been detained for their safety but did not confirm whether they had been formally arrested.
Police told AFP on Sunday that detectives had detained two others, while a Students Against Discrimination activist told AFP a third man was detained on Sunday morning.
At least 9,000 people have been arrested across the country since the unrest began, according to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s largest daily newspaper.
jobs crisis
Protests erupted this month against the reintroduction of a quota scheme that reserves more than half of all government jobs for a few candidates.
Nearly 18 million young Bangladeshis are unemployed, according to government data, and the move has caused deep disappointment among graduates facing a severe employment crisis.
Critics say the quota is used to place loyalists of the ruling Awami League in public jobs.
The Supreme Court last week reduced the number of reserved jobs but could not meet the protesters’ demand to abolish the quota completely.
Prime Minister Hasina has been ruling Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive term in January after voting without any real opposition.