Student leaders in Bangladesh yesterday demanded that Nobel winner Muhammad Yunus lead a caretaker government, a day after the military took control as mass demonstrations forced Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country.
Hasina, 76, had been in power since 2009, but was accused of rigging elections in January and then watched millions of people take to the streets over the past month demanding she quit.
Hundreds of people were killed as security forces sought to quell the unrest, but the protests grew and Hasina on Monday finally fled aboard a helicopter after the military turned against her.
Photo: Reuters
Bangladeshi army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced on state television on Monday afternoon that Hasina had resigned and the military would form an interim government, acknowledging that “it is time to stop the violence.”
Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin yesterday dissolved parliament, a key demand of the student leaders and the major opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP).
Waker was expected to meet student leaders yesterday to hear their demand for the microfinance pioneer Yunus, 84, to lead the government.
Photo: Reuters
Former Bangladeshi prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia was also released from years of house arrest, a presidential statement and her party said.
Zia, 78, who is in poor health, was jailed by her archrival Hasina for graft in 2018.
The students also want the dissolution of parliament in a call echoed by the BNP, which has demanded elections within three months.
“In Dr Yunus, we trust,” Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination group, wrote on Facebook.
Yunus has not commented on the call for him to lead, but he said in an interview with India’s The Print that Bangladesh had been “an occupied country” under Hasina.
“Today all the people of Bangladesh feel liberated,” it quoted Yunus as saying.
Streets in Dhaka were largely peaceful, with traffic resuming and shops opening, but government offices were mainly closed a day after chaotic violence in which at least 113 people were killed.
Millions of people flooded the streets of Dhaka to celebrate after Waker’s announcement on Monday, although jubilant crowds also stormed and looted Hasina’s official residence.
“We have been freed from a dictatorship”, said Sazid Ahnaf, 21, comparing the events to the independence war that split the nation from Pakistan more than five decades ago.
There were also scenes of chaos and anger, with police reporting mobs had launched revenge attacks on Hasina’s allies and their own officers.
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