DHAKA (AFP) – Thousands of Bangladeshi protesters demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resign clashed with pro-government supporters yesterday, with at least 24 people killed in confrontations using sticks, knives and guns.
Protesters danced on the roof of an armoured car and, unlike the past month of rallies that repeatedly ended in deadly crackdowns, soldiers and police in several cases did not intervene.
A respected former army chief also demanded the government withdraw troops and allow protests in a hugely symbolic rebuke of Hasina.
Demonstrators in Dhaka, surrounded by a tightly packed and cheering crowd, waved a Bangladeshi flag on top of an armoured car as soldiers watched, according to videos on social media verified by AFP.
Rallies against civil service job quotas sparked days of mayhem in July that killed more than 200 people in some of the worst unrest of Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Troops briefly restored order but crowds returned to the streets in huge numbers this month in a non-cooperation movement aimed at paralysing the government.
Vast crowds of protesters, many wielding sticks, packed into Dhaka’s central Shahbagh Square yesterday, with street battles in multiple sites as well as in other key cities, police said.
Police have ordered a nationwide curfew beginning at 6pm, while mobile internet access was widely curbed in a bid to frustrate the organisation of rallies.
Violence yesterday took the total of people killed to at least 230.
“There were clashes between students and the ruling party men,” police inspector Al Helal told AFP, saying two young men were killed in Dhaka’s Munshiganj district.
“One of the dead was hacked in his head and another had gunshot injuries.”
Another policeman, who asked not to be identified, said “the whole city has turned into a battleground”.
Two people were killed in the northern city of Kishioreganj, where protesters torched a ruling party office, police said.
Police and doctors also reported deaths elsewhere in Dhaka, in the northern districts of Bogra, Pabna, Rangpur and Sylhet, as well as in Magura in the west, Comilla in the east, and Barisal and Feni in the south.
Asif Mahmud, one of the key protest leaders in the nationwide civil disobedience campaign, earlier asked supporters to be ready after last month’s rallies were crushed by police.
“Prepare bamboo sticks and liberate Bangladesh,” he wrote on Facebook yesterday.
