DHAKA – A Bangladeshi student group has vowed to resume protests that sparked a lethal police crackdown and nationwide unrest unless several of its leaders are released from custody on July 28.
Last week’s violence killed at least 205 people, according to an AFP count of police and hospital data, in one of the biggest upheavals of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Army patrols and a nationwide curfew remain in place more than a week after they were imposed, and a police dragnet has scooped up thousands of protesters, including at least half a dozen student leaders.
Members of Students Against Discrimination, whose campaign against civil service job quotas precipitated the unrest, said they would end their week-long protest moratorium.
The group’s chief, Mr Nahid Islam, and others “should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn”, Mr Abdul Hannan Masud told reporters in an online briefing late on July 27.
Mr Masud, who did not disclose his location because he was in hiding from the authorities, also demanded “visible actions” be taken against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.
“Otherwise, Students Against Discrimination will be forced to launch tough protests” from July 29, he said.
Mr Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were on July 26 forcibly discharged from hospital in the capital Dhaka and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.
Mr Islam had previously told AFP he was being treated at the hospital for injuries police inflicted on him during an earlier round of detention and said he was in fear for his life.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters on July 26 that the trio were taken into custody for their own safety but did not confirm if they had been formally arrested.
The police told AFP on July 28 that detectives had taken two others into custody, while a Students Against Discrimination activist told AFP that a third had been taken on the morning of July 28.
At least 9,000 people have been arrested nationwide since the unrest began, according to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh’s largest daily newspaper.
While a curfew imposed on July 19 remains in force, it has been progressively eased through the week, in a sign of the Hasina government’s confidence that order was gradually being restored.
Source link : https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-asia/bangladesh-students-vow-to-resume-protests-unless-leaders-freed
Author :
Publish date : 2024-07-28 03:45:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.