agencies
Dhaka
Violence continued to escalate in Bangladesh amid student protests over government job quota reforms, with local media reporting that more than 10 people were killed in clashes on Thursday.
Thousands of protesters clashed with police and ruling party supporters in Dhaka and other parts of the country, torching vehicles, offices, police outposts and targeting state media as they attempted to impose a “complete shutdown” to force their demands to be met, according to reports from across the country.
The Bangladesh daily newspaper Prothom Alo reported that at least 11 people were killed - nine in Dhaka and one each in the districts of Savar and Madaripur.
Police were contacted by DPA but were yet to confirm the casualties. A number of protesters and police officers were injured in the clashes.
A 50-year-old bystander was shot dead during disorders in the Dhaka’s eastern neighbourhood of Badda, said Rubel Hossain, an official at the nearby Farayezi Hospital.
Protesters set fire to the headquarters of the state broadcaster in Bangladesh, the authorities said. A post on BTV’s official Facebook page warned “many” were trapped inside the building in Dhaka, as it appealed for help from the fire service to put the blaze out.
Bangladesh’s information minister told the BBC that broadcasts had been stopped and most employees had left the building in the capital.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had appeared on the network the night before, appealing for calm after days of violent protests which have left at least 17 people dead, possibly many more, and hundreds injured. Students have been holding rallies demanding change to a system which reserves a third of public sector jobs for the relatives of veterans of the country’s war for independence from Pakistan in 1971.
The students are arguing that the system is discriminatory, asking for recruitment based on merit. The government has been trying to quell the protests, on Thursday switching off the country’s mobile internet in an attempt to slow the students.
Instead, it became the deadliest day so far, according to news agency AFP. According to its count citing hospitals, a total of 32 people have died during the protests - most of them on Thursday.
The BBC’s Bengali service has confirmed 17 deaths so far - among them, a 32-year-old journalist for the Dhaka Times.
Sheikh Hasina had condemned protesters’ deaths as “murder” in her Wednesday television appearance, but her words were largely dismissed by protest organisers.
Thursday saw tear gas and rubber bullets deployed by officers, as students created human blockades in the streets.
The students who stormed BTV had earlier “torched” a police station, according to an official at BTV. “They chased the police officers when they took refuge at the BTV office,” the official told AFP. “Angry protesters then caused mayhem here.”
