DHAKA: Bangladesh went into a nationwide communications blackout on Friday following clashes between police and students that have killed dozens of people in the past few days.
The government announced on Thursday night it was shutting down mobile internet for security reasons as student protestors demanding the removal of government employment quotas were on the streets after authorities sealed their campuses and dorms and suspended all educational institutions.
On Friday morning, television news channels were off air, and most online news websites could not be opened.
Morning headlines and top stories in local dailies estimated that between 24 and 37 people had been killed and hundreds of others injured since the clashes broke out on Sunday between the students, government supporters and security forces.
The actual death toll is feared to be higher, as already on Thursday, students reported 39 deaths. But on Friday, neither student representatives nor local hospital authorities could be reached for comment due to the blackout.
Riot police and at least 2,400 troops from the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh were deployed in the capital, where Dhaka Metropolitan Police banned all gatherings. The forces on the ground were assisted by monitoring helicopters of the Rapid Action Battalion — a counterterrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police.
University students have been demonstrating on campuses since the beginning of July against a rule that reserves a bulk of government jobs for the descendants of those who fought in the country’s 1971 liberation war.
The quota system was abolished by the government after student protests in 2018, but the High Court reinstated it in June, triggering protests.
Under the quota system, 56 percent of public service jobs are reserved for specific groups, including women, marginalized communities and children and grandchildren of freedom fighters — for whom the government earmarks 30 percent of the posts.
More than a fourth of Bangladesh’s 170 million population were people aged between 15 and 29. The unemployment rate is the highest in this group, contributing 83 percent of the total unemployed people in the country.
The quotas for well-paid government jobs hit them directly.
Dr. Rasheda Rawnak Khan, associate professor at Dhaka University, said the issue could have been solved long before the outbreak of the ongoing protests.
“It should have been solved in a prompt manner as the matter is related to the youths,” she told Arab News.
“Probably the state here failed to read the pulses of the youth.”
