Police and student activists in Bangladesh have been involved in pitched battles for nearly three weeks, with protesters returning daily to the streets despite an increasingly violent crackdown from authorities and a rapidly rising toll of killed and injured protesters.
The Awami League government on Friday announced a nationwide curfew after police and security officials banned all kinds of meetings in the capital, Dhaka. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also announced that military forces would be deployed to help the civilian administration keep order.
The public has come out since Thursday in large numbers showing solidarity with the protesting students. Many public groups were found distributing free food and water to them.
University students across Bangladesh on July 1 began protesting a recent High Court decision that would restore a previously abolished quota system.
According to the quota policy, at least 30% of the civil service jobs in the country are reserved specifically for children and grandchildren of "freedom fighters" — those who fought against Pakistan in Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War.
This came as a blow to students in a country where millions remain unemployed for years after graduating from universities.
A 21-year-old student at the University of Dhaka, who asked that his name not be used for security reasons, said the protesters' demands began with a call for "a fair system" of job allocation in the country.
"We wanted a revised quota system as currently 56% of government jobs are based on reservation," he said. "While it is understandable that the children of freedom fighters sacrificed a lot and are therefore benefited by the quota system, it is absolutely ridiculous to extend the same quota to the grandchildren of freedom fighters."
The student, who said he was injured in a baton attack by police, told VOA, "We want equal opportunities for accessing government jobs."
At least 19 students were killed Thursday, according to the country's local dailies. The actual number that day may have been as high as 50, several student activists told VOA.
At least 52 people were killed in Dhaka on Friday, according to a list prepared by Dhaka Medical College and Hospital.
Also Friday, several hundred inmates escaped from the Narsingdi district prison after student protesters attacked the jail, according to BBC Bangla.
On Thursday, several high school students joined the protest, which had previously been confined to university and college students. A ninth-grade student, Tahmid Tamim, was killed by a bullet fired by a police official, national media reported.
The student protesters set fire Thursday to the headquarters of Bangladesh Television, the nation's state broadcaster, officials confirmed.
Hundreds of students are in hospitals in cities across the country after being injured by bullets and pellets, among other weapons.
A violent crackdown
In a video that went viral Thursday on social media in Bangladesh — before internet services were suspended in all areas — a police officer can be heard threatening several unarmed student protesters.
"Students, don't come out on the street. We have an order from the higher-ups to shoot you on sight," the officer is heard saying.
What began as a peaceful protest by students demanding merit-based employment turned deadly as the Bangladesh police and Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of the ruling Awami League, turned physically violent against the students, killing six demonstrators on Wednesday.
U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk released a statement Friday condemning the attack on student protesters, calling the actions "shocking and unacceptable."
"I am also very worried by reports about the deployment of paramilitary police units such as the Border Guard Bangladesh and the Rapid Action Battalion, which have long track records of violations," he said.
Protesting women allege sexual abuse
Amid the killings and beatings, several female student protesters have alleged sexual harassment by the police and BCL members.
A female student protester from North South University in Dhaka, who asked to remain anonymous for her safety, told VOA that on Wednesday, when the government shut down all education institutions in the country, the female students were threatened with sexual assault amid evacuation orders.
"The police told us that we could lose our physical dignity if we stayed in the university protesting and disobeyed their orders. Girls have begun carrying pepper spray with them for protection," she said.
According to activists and political analysts, the quota-reform movement may prove to be much larger than it seems.
Paris-based Bangladeshi social activist Pinaki Bhattacharya said that the protest is far greater than just a demand for a revised policy.
"This movement is also being driven with an aim to restore democracy, citizens' rights and voting rights of people. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has turned Bangladesh into a fascist state after her Awami League party rigged general elections repeatedly and formed governments illegally. This movement is the one that is aimed to bring an end to the fascist regime," he told VOA.
In a news conference late Thursday, Obaidul Quader, Awami League general secretary and minister at the department of roads, transport and bridges, said the government has accepted all the demands of the students.
"The government will advise the court to offer 80% of the civil service jobs as merit-based ones," he said, urging the student protesters to leave the streets.
Ali Riaz, political analyst and professor of political science at Illinois State University, said that the quota-reform protest is an "unprecedented movement" in the history of Bangladesh.
Never in the nation's history, Riaz said, has a student-led movement witnessed so many deaths. "Despite persecution, intimidation, attacks and vilification, students have persevered," he said, "and in the past days people from various walks of life have joined them, although this movement was neither started nor steered by any political party.
"The immediate impacts of this movement on Hasina's regime will be determined in coming few days. If the movement sustains, the regime may succumb. What I fear is that the regime will double down and perpetrate more violence, more lives will be lost," he told VOA.
