Bangladesh students vow to resume protests unless leaders freed

By -
Bangladesh students vow to resume protests unless leaders freed
A Bangladeshi student group has vowed to resume protests that sparked a lethal police crackdown and nationwide unrest unless several of their leaders are released from custody.

Members of Students Against Discrimination, whose campaign against civil service job quotas precipitated the unrest, said they would end their weeklong protest moratorium.

The group's chief Nahid Islam and others "should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn", Abdul Hannan Masud told reporters in an online briefing.

Masud, who did not disclose his location because he was in hiding from authorities, also demanded "visible actions" be taken against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.

"Otherwise, Students Against Discrimination will be forced to launch tough protests" from Monday, he said.

Last week's violence killed at least 205 people including several police officers, according to an AFP news agency count of police and hospital data, in one of the biggest upheavals of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's 15-year tenure.

Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were on Friday forcibly discharged from a hospital in the capital Dhaka and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.

Earlier in the week Islam said he was being treated at the hospital for injuries police inflicted on him during an earlier round of detention and said he was in fear for his life.

Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan had said the trio were taken into custody for their safety but did not confirm if they had been formally arrested.

At least 9,000 people have been arrested nationwide since the unrest began according to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh's largest daily newspaper.

Bangladesh's mobile internet network was restored in the afternoon, 11 days after a nationwide blackout imposed at the height of the unrest.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

At least 11 dead, others injured after train catches fire near Rahim Yar Khan

By Admin -
Image
At least 11 passengers lost their lives and 30 others sustained burn injuries when three carriages of a Tezgam Express caught fire due to explosion in a gas stove, according to initial reports. Meanwhile, firefighters have initiated a rescue operation to extinguish the fire and other passengers are being evacuated from the train to safe places. The affected carriages are being separated from the train. The train, Tezgam, was on its way from Karachi to Rawalpindi, when a gas cylinder carried by a passenger exploded, leaving several dead and injured. The fire was caused by the explosion in a gas cylinder, confirmed the Pakistan Railways official. According to details, the passengers were cooking breakfast when the gas cylinder exploded. After the blast, the raging fire engulfed two other coaches as well. Fire fighters were still extinguishing the fire as per last reports.
Read more

Three soldiers martyred in terrorist attack on checkpost in Balochistan’s Zarghoon

By -
Image
As many as three soldiers embraced martyrdom and one terrorist was killed in an exchange of fire between security forces and terrorists in Zarghun, the area of Balochistan on Saturday. According to the military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), an operation was launched in the area against suspected terrorists who attacked a security post. “Troops on the post retaliated readily to the fire raid thereby, pushing back the terrorists,” stated the military’s media wing. In the ensuing exchange of fire, three soldiers were martyred while one terrorist was also killed. The military identified the martyred soldiers as Sepoy Zaheer Ahmed, Sepoy Mudassir Shaheed and Lance Naik Abdul Qadeer. The ISPR stated that the post had recently been established to “check extortion efforts targeting coal mines in the area”. “Based on follow-up ISR effort, likely hideout of fleeing terrorists has been identified in nearby mountains and a deliberate blocking and sanitisation op...
Read more

Legal process to try May 9 planners, perpetrators under army act begins: COAS

By -
Image
Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir has said that the legal process of trial against planners, instigators, abettors and perpetrators involved in the May 9 mayhem has commenced under Pakistan Army Act and Official Secret Act as per existing and established legal procedures derived from the Constitution. The army chief's statement came as he visited Jinnah House and an army installation in Lahore, which were blatantly attacked and vandalised by “politically motivated” rioters, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a handout. The COAS was also given a briefing on events of May 9 dubbed by the military as ‘Black Day’ — the day when Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) supporters ransacked and torched military installations across the country following the arrest of their leader Imran Khan in a graft case. Addressing the garrison officers and soldiers at Corps Headquarters, Gen Munir emphasised that any action aimed at widening a gulf between people and the milita...
Read more