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AFP
DHAKA
DAYS of protests over road safety in Bangladesh looked to be fizzling out on Tuesday after around 150 people were injured in clashes with riot police and pro-government thugs wielding iron bars.
Nine days of protests saw tens of thousands of teenagers and students paralyse traffic in the capital Dhaka and beyond. Eight buses were torched and hundreds of vehicles vandalised.
Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets while allegedly pro-government mobs attacked demonstrators, photographers and even the US ambassador's car.
Students said on Tuesday that many went back to school as they fear further government repression if the protests continued.
"We are panicked. We hear that some of the students who took part in yesterday's protests have been arrested,"a private university student told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another student, Ratul Abdullah, said four of his friends have been missing since yesterday."Today everything is normal. Students have returned to their classes,"Mahbubur Rahman, head of Bangladesh's secondary and higher education authority, told AFP.
"So far no news of protests from any university,"he said, adding that the authorities have shut down two universities in an effort to quell the protests.
Some 200 students at a state-run university in western city of Rajshahi however joined a march and rally, a student activist of the university said.
The protests, initially by highschoolers and then students, were to demand better safety on Bangladesh's chaotic and corruption-riddled transport network after a bus killed two teens on July 29.
At least 7,397 people -- around 20 a day -- died in road accidents last year, up nearly a quarter from 2016, according to the private Passengers Welfare Association.
