DHAKA: At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation’s capital and elsewhere over a govt jobs quota scheme, media reports said quoting officials. At least three of the dead were students and one a pedestrian. Another man who died remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported after overnight violence at a public university near Dhaka.The violence involved pro-govt student body members and other students, when police fired tear gas and baton charged protesters during clashes which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, students and authorities said. Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence, which allows them to take up 30% of govt jobs. They say quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Each year, 3,000 jobs open up to 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice regardless of their current political ideologies. “Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had…,” she said in Dhaka.
The education ministry Tuesday night ordered nationwide closure of schools.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country’s leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. Over 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said. Protesters Tuesday blocked railways and highways across the country. In Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to keep demonstrating until demands were met.