Indian students, who study in Bangladesh, in a bus upon their arrival at Akhaura check post of the India-Bangladesh border in Tripura on Saturday, following protests against government job quotas in Bangladesh.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Since the beginning of the clashes between students and security forces in Bangladesh, India has evacuated 978 nationals who were studying in various institutions in Bangladesh, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has said.

The evacuation is part of security measures that the Indian officials in the High Commission in Dhaka and in the Assistant High Commissions are taking to ensure the safety of around 8,000 Indian students.

An MEA press note has informed that Indian officials are also assisting students from Nepal and Bhutan to leave Bangladesh as educational institutions have shut indefinitely in view of the ongoing clashes that have left at least 105 protesters dead.

Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on X that around 800 Nepali students have been evacuated from Bangladesh by air or via land border posts.

Coordinating with airlines

Indian officials are coordinating with airline companies and the law enforcement officials in the violence-hit country to evacuate Indian nationals from Dhaka and Chittagoing airports. “Security escorts have also been arranged, where necessary, for their travel by road during repatriation through select land ports,” the MEA said in the press note. Officials said more students were crossing through land ports on Saturday evening.

Bangladesh continued to remain cut off from the world as the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina blocked mobile internet as part of the crackdown against student protesters. Along with the internet facilities, major news outlets of the country like Daily Star and Dhaka Tribune have also continued to remain inaccessible.

The U.S. State Department has announced that the “situation is extremely volatile and unpredictable” adding that the “US Embassy Dhaka continues to offer only limited services at this time”.

“All but emergency consular services are cancelled until further notice. Mission personnel have been advised to shelter in place until further notice,” declared the US State Department in a Facebook post.

With the blocking of mobile internet and broadband services, freedom of expression has also come under a shadow prompting several international figures to comment on the deteriorated law and order situation in Bangladesh. Former US ambassador to Bangladesh William B. Milam has called upon the U.S. government and the international community “to make clear to the Bangladesh Government that it will be held accountable for its actions.”

Two journalists killed, several others injured

The violence between the protesters and the security forces continued on Saturday that left at least 30 journalists with serious injuries and at two journalists dead, said editor of Bhorer Kagoj Shyamal Datta to The Hindu while speaking over telephone. “The protest by the students has been taken over by the political opponents of the government and has turned into a war-like situation. We are expecting that the case on the quota system will come up in the Supreme Court on Sunday when a step towards dialogue will be taken,” said Mr. Datta.

Among many incidents that have taken place over the past few days, it is the attack on a prison in Narsingdi in the country that was most alarming, said Mr. Datta, while adding that hundreds of inmates escaped from the prison that included some hardened extremists.

The anti-quota movement has broadened with the support from civil society movements and NGOs like BRAC that have been providing relief to the students who came under attack from the police forces. Asif Saleh, Executive Director of BRAC, had expressed sympathy with the protesters cautioning about trust deficit for Ms. Hasina’s government saying: “In these uncertain times, empathy and fellow feeling and direct dialogue was necessary, instead the students got sticks and kicks.”

Bangladesh on Friday announced the imposition of a curfew and the deployment of military forces after police failed to quell days of deadly unrest that has spread throughout the country.

This week’s clashes between student demonstrators and police have killed at least 105 people, according to an AFP count of victims reported by hospitals, and pose a momentous challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic government after 15 years in office.

“The government has decided to impose a curfew and deploy the military in aid of the civilian authorities,” Hasina’s press secretary Nayeemul Islam Khan told AFP.

He added that the curfew would take immediate effect.

Police in the capital Dhaka earlier took the drastic step of banning all public gatherings for the day — a first since protests began — in an effort to forestall more violence. 

“We’ve banned all rallies, processions and public gatherings in Dhaka today,” police chief Habibur Rahman told AFP, adding the move was necessary to ensure “public safety”.

That however did not stop another round of confrontations between police and protesters around the sprawling megacity of 20 million people, despite an internet shutdown aimed at frustrating the organisation of rallies.

“Our protest will continue,” Sarwar Tushar, who joined a march in the capital and sustained minor injuries when it was violently dispersed by police, told AFP. 

“We want the immediate resignation of Sheikh Hasina. The government is responsible for the killings.”

Student protesters stormed a jail in the central Bangladeshi district of Narsingdi and freed its inmates before setting the facility on fire, a police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“I don’t know the number of inmates, but it would be in the hundreds,” he added.

– ‘Shocking and unacceptable’ –

At least 52 people were killed in the capital on Friday, according to a list drawn up by the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and seen by AFP.

Police fire was the cause of more than half of the deaths reported so far this week, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff. 

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the attacks on student protesters were “shocking and unacceptable”.

“There must be impartial, prompt and exhaustive investigations into these attacks, and those responsible held to account,” he said in a statement.

The capital’s police force earlier said protesters had on Thursday torched, vandalised and carried out “destructive activities” on numerous police and government offices.

Among them was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of incensed students stormed the premises and set fire to a building.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP that officers had arrested Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, one of the top leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). 

– ‘Symbol of a rigged system’ – 

Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Hasina’s government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police stepped up efforts to bring the deteriorating law and order situation under control.

“This is an eruption of the simmering discontent of a youth population built over years,” Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University, told AFP. 

“The job quotas became the symbol of a system which is rigged and stacked against them by the regime.”

– ‘Nation-scale’ internet shutdown –

Students say they are determined to press on with protests despite Hasina giving a national address earlier this week on the now-offline state broadcaster seeking to calm the unrest.

Nearly half of Bangladesh’s 64 districts reported clashes on Thursday, broadcaster Independent Television reported.

London-based watchdog NetBlocks said Friday that a “nation-scale” internet shutdown remained in effect a day after it was imposed.

“Metrics show connectivity flatlining at 10% of ordinary levels, raising concerns over public safety as little news flows in or out of the country,” it wrote on social media platform X. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Violent clashes broke out between students and security forces in Bangladesh last month over the newly reinstated reservation system for hiring in civil services. Around 64 people have been killed this week, according to news agency AFP and over 2,500 injured in the clashes.

The protests erupted after a High Court in Bangladesh reinstated the reservation of 30% government jobs for the family members of freedom fighters and veterns from 1971 War of Independance.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressed the nation on Wednesday hoping to calm the situation, however, the protestors set on fire the country’s state broadcaster building a day after her address.

Today, the proestors stormed and set on fire a jail in Bangladeshi district of Narsingdi, according to new agency AFP.

“The inmates fled the jail and the protesters set the jail on fire. I don’t know the number of inmates, but it would be in the hundreds,” a cop told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

The Bangadesh Supreme Court has suspended the High Court’s order on reservation and is set to hear the government’s challenge on August 7.