DHAKA (AFP) – After weeks of deadly student-led protests in Bangladesh toppled the autocratic premier, among the first things children at a school in the capital Dhaka did when they returned to class was honour their slain friend.
Shafiq Uddin Ahmed Ahnaf, 17, was on the frontlines of the demonstrations this month when he was shot and killed.
While much remains politically uncertain in Bangladesh, two weeks after then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India, the reopening of schools on Sunday was a sign of daily life returning to normal.
Many of the 450 people who were killed – most by police fire – in the weeks of protests leading up to Hasina’s August 5 ouster were students like Ahnaf.
And on Sunday, the first day back in class since the unrest, the slain boy’s classmates honoured him by placing a bouquet on the desk he once occupied, Dhaka media reported.
Mazeda Begum, principal at another public school in Dhaka, said students were keen to return to the classroom “after going through the month-long trauma”.
Begum is planning a cultural programme “so that they can get back their mental strength”.
