Police in Bangladesh clashed with student protesters attempting to impose a “complete shutdown” of the country on Thursday, following days of violent confrontations during demonstrations over a system of allocating government jobs, with media reports saying 19 more people died across the country.

Dhaka-based leading Prothom Alo newspaper, which has a strong network of reporters across the country, said that by late Thursday night, they received reports of 19 deaths in Dhaka and elsewhere in the raging violence. The country’s leading English-language Daily Star also reported 19 deaths.

With the latest toll, the number of deaths has reached 25, since Tuesday when six others lost their lives in the violence.

The dailies said hundreds more were injured on Thursday.

Authorities didn’t confirm the figures immediately.

Prothom Alo said at least six people died in Dhaka’s Uttara area alone in the latest clashes between the protesters and the security officials and ruling party activists. Thirteen others including a Dhaka-based journalist of an online portal died in other parts of the capital and elsewhere.

Also read | India urges citizens in Bangladesh to stay indoors in advisory as deadly protests escalate

The country’s state-run Bangladesh Television station’s head office was attacked as the protesters broke the main gate, and set the reception and vehicle on fire, a news producer and a reporter told The Associated Press by phone on condition of anonymity as they were afraid of attack.

“I escaped by leaping over the wall but some of my colleagues got stuck inside. The attackers entered the building and set furniture on fire,” the producer said by phone. He said the television continued broadcasting but some residents in Dhaka said they found no signal at home for the station.

Students have been demonstrating for weeks against a quota system for government jobs they say favors allies of the ruling party, but the protests have escalated since violence broke out between protesters, police and pro-government student activists on the campus of Dhaka University on Monday. Six people were killed on Tuesday, leading the government to ask universities across the country to close and police to raid the main opposition party’s headquarters.

As violence continued to take place Thursday, Bangladesh’s Law Minister Anisul Huq said in the afternoon that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked him to sit down with the protesters for a dialogue, and he was ready to speak with them on Thursday if protesters were willing.

On Wednesday night, the protesters announced they would enforce “a complete shutdown” allowing only emergency services across the country on Thursday in response to security officials’ continued attacks on the campus demonstrators. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party said that it would do what it could to make the shutdown a success.

Clashes continued as protesters attempted to enforce the shutdown Thursday morning. In Dhaka’s Uttara neighborhood, hundreds of protesters were chased by police after they blocked the road and chanted. In other places, police fired tear gas and charged with batons to disperse the protesters, who threw stones in response. Scores, including police, were injured in the violence, said a spokesperson for the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

Police said protesters attacked and set fire to a traffic police box and vandalized police vehicles amid clashes across the city.

Traffic was thin on Dhaka’s usually clogged streets on Thursday morning, while many malls closed. Offices and banks opened, but commuters complained that transport was limited. Police set up checkpoints at the entrances to Dhaka University.

Local television reported violence in other cities including Chattogram and Khulna, while protesters also blocked some major highways.

Salma Rahman, an official at a financial institution in Dhaka, said that she left her car at home and caught a ride on a motorcycle. “Our office has alerted us to stay safe on the streets, as there is fear that violence could happen during the shutdown.”

Protesters are demanding an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30% of government jobs for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. They argue that the system is discriminatory and benefits supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement, and they want it replaced with a merit-based system.

Ms. Hasina’s government halted the quotas after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh’s High Court nullified that decision and reinstated the quotas after relatives of the 1971 veterans filed petitions, triggering the latest demonstrations. The Supreme Court then suspended the High Court’s ruling and is expected to rule on Aug. 7. The government has also appealed the High Court decision in the wake of the protest, according to the attorney general’s office.

Huq said the government was seeking an early hearing.

“I have already asked the attorney general to appeal in the Supreme Court on Sunday seeking early hearing,” he told reporters. The Supreme Court had earlier set Aug. 7 to decide on the quota issue. Friday and Saturday are parts of the weekend in Bangladesh. The court opens on Sunday.

“I am requesting all to wait with patience until the verdict is delivered,” Hasina said in a televised address Wednesday evening. “I believe our students will get justice from the apex court. They will not be disappointed.”

While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh’s private sector, many people prefer government jobs because they are stable and well-paid. Each year, around 4,00,000 graduates compete for 3,000 jobs in the civil service exam.

Hasina said there would be a judicial investigation into Tuesday’s deaths and vowed that those responsible would be brought to justice.

“Some precious lives have been lost unnecessarily,” she said. “I condemn every killing.”

U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Türk posted on X that all acts of violence and deadly use of force must be investigated and the perpetrators held accountable. Türk said freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are fundamental human rights.

Bangladesh’s ruling party blamed the BNP for the chaos, and Dhaka police raided the party’s headquarters late Tuesday. Detective Chief Harun-or-Rashid said police arrested seven members of the party’s student wing, and said detectives found 100 crude bombs, 500 wooden and bamboo sticks, and five to six bottles of gasoline in the raid.

Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, a senior BNP leader, said the raid was a government attempt to divert attention from the protests.

This aerial view shows an area partially submerged in flood at Rangpur district on July 6, 2024. The death toll from floods in Bangladesh this week has risen to eight, leaving more than two million affected after heavy rains caused major rivers to burst their banks, officials confirmed on July 6
| Photo Credit: AFP

The death toll from floods in Bangladesh this week has risen to eight, leaving more than two million affected after heavy rains caused major rivers to burst their banks, officials confirmed on July 6.

The South Asian nation of 170 million people, crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, has seen more frequent floods in recent decades.

Climate change has made rainfall more erratic and melting glaciers upstream in the Himalayan mountains.

Two teenage boys were killed when a boat capsized in flood waters in Shahjadur, the northern rural town’s police chief Sabuj Rana told AFP.

“There were nine people in the small boat. Seven swam to safety. Two boys did not know how to swim. They drowned,” he said.

Bishwadeb Roy, a police chief in Kurigram, said that three others had been killed in two separate electrocution incidents after their boats became entangled with live electricity wires in flood water.

Another three died in separate flood-related incidents around the country, officials told AFP earlier this week.

The government said it has opened hundreds of shelters for people displaced by the waters and sent food and relief to hard-hit districts in the country’s north region.

“More than two million people have been affected by the floods. Seventeen of the country’s 64 districts have been affected,” Kamrul Hasan, the secretary of the country’s disaster management ministry, told AFP.

Hasan said the flood situation may worsen in the north over the coming days with the Brahmaputra, one of Bangladesh’s main waterways, flowing above danger levels in some areas.

In the worst-hit Kurigram district, eight out of nine rural towns have been marooned by flood water, local disaster and relief official Abdul Hye told AFP.

“We live with floods here. But this year the water was very high. In three days, Brahmaputra rose by six to eight feet [2-2.5 metres],” Abdul Gafur, a local councillor in the district, told AFP.

“Flood water has inundated more than 80 percent of homes in my area. We are trying to deliver food, especially rice and edible oil. But there is a drinking water crisis.”

Bangladesh is in the middle of the annual summer monsoon, which brings South Asia 70-80% of its annual rainfall, as well as regular deaths and destruction due to flooding and landslides.

The rainfall is hard to forecast and varies considerably, but scientists say climate change is making the monsoon stronger and more erratic.