At least 40 people were killed in clashes between security forces and protesters on Sunday in Bangladesh, as the government imposed a new curfew and internet restrictions to try to quell a growing antigovernment movement.
Revived and expanded student protests, after a deadly government crackdown late last month, and a call by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s governing party for its own supporters to also take to the streets, have plunged the country of over 170 million into a particularly dangerous phase.
At least 40 people were killed on Sunday across Bangladesh, according to a diplomatic official based in Dhaka, adding to the more than 200 people killed in the crackdown on protests in July. Tallies by local news media, as well as a statement from coordinators of the student protests, put Sunday’s death toll at over 50. At least 13 of the dead were police officers, the country’s Police Headquarters said in a statement.
What began as a peaceful student protest last month over a preferential quota system for public-sector jobs has morphed into unprecedented anger at Ms. Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian turn and her management of the economy.
While the crackdown, which included the arrests of more than 10,000 people and the lodging of police cases against tens of thousands more, temporarily dispersed the protesters, the demonstrations have been back in full force since Friday.
The protesters’ anger over the more than 200 deaths has solidified their demands to a single point: On Saturday, at a rally of tens of thousands, they demanded the resignation of Ms. Hasina, who has been in power for 15 years.
In response to the resignation call, her Awami League party called on its supporters to join counterprotests — setting up the tense situation that unfolded on Sunday.
In a statement sent to the news media on Sunday, as internet restrictions went into effect, leaders of the student movement called for the protests to continue uninterrupted.
“If there is an internet crackdown, if we are disappeared, arrested, or killed, and if there is no one left to make announcements, everyone should continue to occupy the streets and maintain peaceful noncooperation until the government falls in response to our one demand,” Nahid Islam, one of the movement’s leaders, said in the statement.
As the chaos escalates, with both the protesters and Ms. Hasina’s governing party digging in their heels, and as opposition parties take the opportunity to pile on, all eyes are on the country’s military.
While the army and other security forces were deployed during the crackdown in July, the army’s chief, Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, gathered his senior officers on Saturday for a meeting that was seen as an attempt to quell concerns over the army’s position in the crisis and reinforce its neutrality.
In a statement issued after the meeting, the army said its chief had reiterated that “the Bangladesh Army will always stand by the people in the interest of the public and in any need of the state.”
