The federal government hasn’t commented on reported loss of life toll or the outages | file picture of Sheikh Hasina
By Advait Palepu
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina shelved her abroad journey plans that have been to begin Sunday, Agence France-Presse reported, amid escalating protests which have killed dozens and triggered a nationwide web blackout.
The premier canceled her journeys to Spain and Brazil “as a result of prevailing state of affairs,” AFP cited her press secretary, Nayeemul Islam Khan, as saying. Not less than 105 folks have been killed in clashes this week between scholar protesters and police, AFP mentioned, citing its depend of victims reported by hospitals.
The administration has stepped up efforts to quell clashes between police and the scholars protesting the federal government’s job quota coverage. The military has been deployed to help native legislation enforcement companies, a curfew is in impact and an web shutdown is affecting ATMs and cellular cash firms.
The protests pose one of many hardest challenges to Hasina, who prolonged her grip on energy for a fourth straight time period in elections earlier this yr. They arrive at a essential time for the economic system, with Bangladesh searching for funds from collectors and the Worldwide Financial Fund to bolster dwindling foreign-exchange reserves.
The federal government hasn’t commented on reported loss of life toll or the outages.
Heavy-handed crackdown
“Authorities should instantly conduct a immediate, unbiased and neutral investigation into the deaths,” Amnesty Worldwide mentioned in a July 19 assertion, calling it a heavy-handed crackdown. “Blanket shutdowns affect folks’s security, safety, mobility, livelihood whereas creating instability and panic, additional undermining their belief in authorities.”
Protesters have in latest days tried to close down transport networks and companies after authorities closed all universities. On Saturday, the Prime Minister Workplace’s web site additionally appeared hacked and defaced, with messages searching for help in opposition to authorities’s actions.
College students’ frustrations have centered on a coverage that units apart 30% of presidency job openings for relations of veterans from the 1971 conflict of independence from Pakistan, which critics say has been abused. The anger stems additionally from persistently excessive youth unemployment that stands at about 40%, in line with the newest census.
First Revealed: Jul 20 2024 | 2:34 PM IST
