Curfew Imposed in Bangladesh, Army to be Deployed

The Sheikh Hasina government announced an indefinite curfew across Bangladesh from midnight tonight. The confirmation of this, according to reports, came from Sharif Mahmud Apu, the PRO of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Officials also announced that the army would be out in force across the country to rein in spiraling protests. The move was made after nationwide demonstrations swelled into deadly violence this week. Clashes between students and pro-government supporters armed with planks and batons, reinforced by the armed police, have fueled broad anger over civil service job quotas that opponents say are discriminatory.

Over 50 people have been killed in the violence; hundreds of others have been injured. Thousands of demonstrators have clashed on the streets and university campuses in Dhaka and other cities with police, who used tear gas and rubber bullets against the mob protesting against it, armed with sticks. On Friday, student protesters set fire to the state-run Bangladesh Television (BTV), forcing it to take a temporary shutdown. Protests Over Upheaval Protests erupted over the upheaval, demand a countrywide shutdown of all businesses and organizations, turning out to be the most potent hurdle to the regime of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The authorities, in an attempt to bring the situation under control, cur off mobiles and internet services and announced shut down of all schools and establishments, marching security forces into the streets to take control of the situation. The authorities were accused by human rights bodies for the use of unconscionable repression.

The foremost demand from the Bangladeshi students is the scrapping off the government’s quota system that bases appointment to more than half of the disengaged posts in the government services on certain groups. From the list of most desired occupations, 30 percent of the vacancies in such jobs are reserved for members of families of the liberation warriors of Bangladesh—veterans of the war in 1971 waged by the Bangladeshi people against Pakistan that led to the attainment of independence of the country.

But the politicians who currently make up much of the political elite are of that generation. Prime Minister Hasina is the daughter of the man who led the country’s independence and its father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, assassinated in 1975. Quota jobs have much higher pay and job security attached, so the protesters say the quota system is discriminatory in favor of supporters of the ruling party of Prime Minister Hasina. They have been demanding recruitment as opposed to the process of recruitment through quotas.

It would be important, therefore, how the government responds and in what way forces are deployed, as the situation continues to remain tense in guiding these protests and the future of the quota system in Bangladesh.