During mass student protests in Bangladesh, protesters clashed with police, leaving dozens dead and hundreds injured in the country.
At the same time, the Bangladesh government decided to impose a nationwide curfew and deploy the army as the growing student protests led to destabilization of the domestic situation in the country.
Protests in Bangladesh: What is known
Students took to the streets to demonstrate their opposition to the quotas for government jobs. Police subsequently cracked down on the ongoing protests, as they continued despite a ban on public gatherings, local media reported.
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The protests initially erupted over student anger at quotas that allocate 30% of government jobs to families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan.
The nationwide unrest, the worst since Hasina's re-election this year, has also been fueled by high unemployment among young people, who make up nearly a fifth of the country's 170 million people, Reuters reported.
Some analysts say the violence is now being fueled by broader economic problems such as high inflation and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
— The protests have opened old and sensitive political fault lines between those who fought for Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971 and those accused of collaborating with Islamabad, — Reuters notes.
Those who fought for independence include the Awami League party, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Party supporters have dubbed the protesters “Razakars”, using a term for independence-era collaborators.
During the protests and crackdown in the Asian country, telecommunications were disrupted and television news channels stopped broadcasting. Authorities also cut off cell phone service the day before to try to quell the unrest.
Bengal newspaper Prothom Alo reported that train services were suspended across the country as protesters blocked roads and threw bricks at security personnel.
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Clashes between students and police: number of deaths and injuries
The first violent clashes began on Monday when student demonstrations were attacked by activists from the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party.
Already on Thursday, thousands of students clashed with armed police in Dhaka. At least 11 people were killed, including a bus driver and a student, police sources told Al Jazeera.
During the suppression of protests, the police used tear gas, writes Reuters. From his rooftop, one Reuters journalist said, he could see multiple fires across the capital Dhaka, with smoke billowing into the sky in some places.
The situation with those killed in the protests on Friday remains unclear. An independent television channel in Bangladesh reported 17 more deaths on Friday. Somoy TV reported that 30 people were killed.
At the same time, as Reuters writes, as a result of the riots that occurred on Thursday in 47 of 64 districts of Bangladesh, about 1.5 thousand people were injured.
In turn, as AFP writes with reference to hospitals, on Friday night the total number of deaths as a result of the protests reached 105 people.
According to the US Embassy in Dhaka, more than 40 people have died in Bangladesh and “hundreds, perhaps thousands” were injured.
A security alert says protests are spreading and there are violent clashes across Dhaka. The situation is “extremely unstable”, the message says.
Protests in Bangladesh: telecommunications disrupted, websites hacked
Friday morning for Bangladesh began with interruptions in the Internet and phone calls abroad: the websites of several Bangladeshi newspapers were not updated, social networks were also inactive.
As Reuters writes, several voice calls went through, but mobile data and broadband were missing. Not even text messages were sent. According to him, news channels and state broadcaster BTV stopped broadcasting, although entertainment channels worked normally.
Some news channels showed a message blaming technical problems and promising to resume broadcasting soon.
The official websites of the central bank, the prime minister's office and the police appear to have been hacked by a group calling itself THE R3SISTANC3.
— Operation HuntDown, stop killing students. This is no longer a protest, now this is a war, — read identical messages on the sites.
Another message on the page read: “The government has shut down the internet to silence us and hide their actions”.
The government did not comment on the communication problems.
