Television news channels in Bangladesh were off the air and telecommunications were widely disrupted on Friday amid violent student protests against quotas for government jobs in which at least 64 people have been killed this week.
Student protesters stormed a jail in the central Bangladeshi district of Narsingdi and freed the facility’s inmates before setting it on fire, as police struggled to quell unrest, with huge rallies in Dhaka despite a police ban on public gatherings.
At least 19 people were killed in the protests in the capital on Friday, according to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
“We have banned all rallies, processions and public gatherings in Dhaka today,” police chief Habibur Rahman said, adding the move was necessary to ensure “public safety”.
That did not stop another round of confrontations between police and protesters around the sprawling megacity of 20 million people, despite an internet shutdown aimed at frustrating the organisation of rallies.
“Our protest will continue,” said Sarwar Tushar, who joined a march in the capital and sustained minor injuries when it was violently dispersed by police. “We want the immediate resignation of [Prime Minister] Sheikh Hasina. The government is responsible for the killings.”
Dhaka’s police force earlier said protesters had on Thursday torched, vandalised and carried out “destructive activities” on numerous police and government offices. Among them was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of incensed students stormed the premises and set fire to a building.
“About 100 policemen were injured in the clashes yesterday,” Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain said. “Around 50 police booths were burnt”.
Mr. Hossain said police had arrested Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, the joint secretary of the main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). “He faces hundreds of cases,” Mr. Hossain said, without giving further details on the reasons for Mr. Ahmed’s detention.
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 back Ms. Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Ms. Hasina’s government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of Opposition activists.
Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police stepped up efforts to bring the deteriorating law and order situation under control.
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