Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned and fled the country by helicopter, media reports said today. Her escape came as thousands of Bangladeshi protesters stormed the palace of the Prime Minister amid mass demonstrations demanding she quit.....CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE>>>
Bangladesh’s Channel 24 broadcast images of crowds running into the premier’s official residence in the capital, waving to the camera as they celebrated. Reports of her resignation came after more people were killed in some of the worst violence since the birth of the South Asian nation more than five decades ago.
The demonstrations began with students seeking to end a quota system for government jobs, but clashes with police and pro-government activists escalated into violence that left more than 200 dead last month. That triggered more protests demanding accountability from the government, which have grew into calls for Hasina to step down.
At least 95 people, including at least 14 police officers, died in clashes in the capital on Sunday, according to the country’s leading Bengali-language daily newspaper, Prothom Alo.
Hundreds more were injured in the violence. Following reports of her resignation, jubilant looking crowds waved flags, some dancing on top of a tank in the streets of Dhaka on Monday morning, before hundreds broke through the gates of Hasina’s official residence.
Bangladesh’s Channel 24 broadcast images of crowds running into the compound, waving to the camera as they celebrated. A source close to Hasina, 76, had earlier told AFP news agency she had left her palace for a ‘safer place’.
Some reports said Hasina had fled to India , although this is not yet confirmed. Bangladesh’s army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman confirmed that Hasina had resigned on Monday, and said an interim government would run the country.
Before the protesters had stormed the compound, Hasina’s son urged the country’s security forces to block any takeover from her 15-year rule.
‘Your duty is to keep our people safe and our country safe and to uphold the constitution,’ her son, US-based Sajeeb Wazed Joy, said in a post on Facebook. ‘It means don’t allow any unelected government to come in power for one minute, it is your duty.’
Security forces had supported Hasina’s government throughout the unrest., But the protesters defied curfews and deadly force. Protesters and government supporters countrywide battled each other with sticks and knives, and security forces opened fire.
Sunday’s violence took the total number of people killed since protests began in early July to at least 300, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials and doctors at hospitals. Waker told officers on Saturday that the military ‘always stood by the people’, according to an official statement.
The military declared an emergency in January 2007 after widespread political unrest and installed a military-backed caretaker government for two years.
Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition. Her government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Demonstrations began over the reintroduction of a quota scheme that reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.
The protests escalated despite the scheme having been scaled back by Bangladesh’s top court. Soldiers and police with armoured vehicles in Dhaka had barricaded routes to Hasina’s office with barbed wire on Monday morning, but vast crowds flooded the streets, tearing down barriers.
The Business Standard newspaper estimated as many as 400,000 protesters were on the streets but it was impossible to verify the figure. ‘The time has come for the final protest,’ said Asif Mahmud, one of the key leaders in the nationwide civil disobedience campaign.
In several cases, soldiers and police did not intervene to stem Sunday’s protests, unlike during the past month of rallies that repeatedly ended in deadly crackdowns.
‘Let’s be clear: The walls are closing in on Hasina: She’s rapidly losing support and legitimacy,’ Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center, told AFP.
‘The protests have taken on immense momentum, fuelled by raw anger but also by the confidence that comes with knowing that so much of the nation is behind them,’ he said.
In a hugely symbolic rebuke of Hasina, a respected former army chief demanded the government ‘immediately’ withdraw troops and allow protests. ‘Those who are responsible for pushing people of this country to a state of such an extreme misery will have to be brought to justice,’ ex-army chief General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan told reporters Sunday.
The anti-government movement had attracted people from across society in the South Asian nation of about 170 million people, including film stars, musicians and singers...CONTINUE READING>>
