Bangladesh woke up Friday to assess the devastation from the deadliest day of ongoing student protests, which saw demonstrators set fire to government buildings and trigger a nationwide internet blackout.
This week’s unrest has claimed at least 39 lives, including 32 on Thursday alone, with the death toll likely to rise as reports of clashes emerge from nearly half of the country’s 64 districts.
A police statement issued after a near-total shutdown of the nation’s internet said protesters had torched, vandalized and carried out “destructive activities” at numerous police and government offices.
Among the targeted sites was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of enraged students stormed the premises and set a building on fire.
“About 100 policemen were injured in the clashes yesterday,” Faruk Hossain, a spokesperson for the capital’s police force, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Around 50 police booths were burned.”
The police statement warned that if the destruction continued, they would “be forced to make maximum use of the law.”
Police fire caused at least two-thirds of the deaths reported so far, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff.
Busy streets around the capital were deserted at dawn but showed signs of the previous night’s chaos, with burned vehicles and bricks thrown by protesters strewn across the roads.
Fresh confrontations broke out between police and protesters around Dhaka later in the morning.
Hundreds of students blockaded roads in the upscale commercial district of Banani, an AFP correspondent at the scene observed.
Witnesses also reported police firing tear gas canisters at several locations around the crowded megacity of 20 million people.
At least 26 districts around the country reported clashes on Thursday, broadcaster Independent Television reported.
The network said more than 700 people were wounded throughout the day, including 104 police officers and 30 journalists.
Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that support Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Symbol of a rigged system
Hasina’s government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and suppress dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police intensified efforts to control the deteriorating law and order situation.
“This is an eruption of the simmering discontent of a youth population built up over years due to economic and political disenfranchisement,” Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University, told AFP.
“The job quotas have become the symbol of a system rigged and stacked against them by the regime.”
Apologize to us
Students have vowed to continue their campaign despite Hasina’s national address on the now-offline state broadcaster, seeking to calm the unrest.
“Our first demand is that the prime minister must apologize to us,” protester Bidisha Rimjhim, 18, told AFP on Thursday.
“Secondly, justice must be ensured for our killed brothers,” she added.
London-based watchdog Netblocks said Friday that a “nation-scale” internet shutdown remained in effect.
“The disruption prevents families from contacting each other and stifles efforts to document human rights violations,” it wrote on the social media platform X.
