Narinjara,August 6, 2024

Guwahati:   Amidst relentless unrest inBangladesh, the western neighbour of Myanmar,  over the quota ingovernment jobs, Prime Minister  Sheikh Hasina resigned from her post andleft the country. The longest serving lady premier in the world, Hasinainitially arrived in Agartala and then moved to New Delhi with the support fromthe Indian high commission in Dhaka. Daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh MujiburRahman, Hasina may fly to Europe for her last destination as she may not takerefuge in India.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Army chief  Waker-Uz-Zamanannounced in Dhaka that an interim government will be formed, whererepresentatives of all political parties are expected to be included.Unconfirmed report says that Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus may leadthe caretaker government, which will guide their election commission to conducta national election within a few months to hand over legitimatepower.    

The chief of Bangla armed forces also appealed to everyonein Bangladesh to restrain from violent activities. The south Asian nation haswitnessed  massive protest demonstrations since last month. In the middleof July, nearly 200 protesters died in the violence, which was allegedlyinstigated by the police personnel and a large number of supporters of Hasina’sparty Awami League. 

 Later the Supreme Court of Bangladesh reduced the jobreservation from 30 to 5 percent, but even though it  did not quell themovement. Lately the protesters, supported by the opposition leaders and commoncivilians, raised the demand for Hasina’s immediate resignation. Butunfortunately another 100 people died in the last two days on the streets ofBangladesh, which created an enormous resentment against Hasina.

Days back, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türkcalled for an impartial probe into alleged human rights violations acrossBangladesh. He also called on Dhaka to restore full Internet access to enablefree communication for all  including the media persons  inaccordance with international law. The UN rights chief urged the government todisclose full details about the crackdown on protests. Amnesty Internationalalso  claimed that the Bangladesh police unlawfully used lethal andless-lethal weapons against student protesters.

The London-based human rights organization argued that the continued verification and analysis of video and photographic evidenceprovides a grim picture. The egregious human rights records of Banglagovernment and Rapid Action Battalion, which has been deployed to police theprotests, provides little reassurance that the protesters’ rights would beprotected in the absence of active international monitoring with internet andcommunication restrictions still partially in place.

Prof Yunus, who is popularly known as the banker to thepoor, also  made a clarion call to the international community includingthe United Nations to halt the murder of agitating Bangladeshi nationals. Currently visiting Paris, Prof Yunus commented that millions of students andothers protesting nationals were attacked by the police personnel  and‘there must be investigations into the killings that have taken place already’.

Speaking to this writer, the octogenarian banker turnedsocial thinker, who faces personal harassment from Hasina with a number offictitious  legal charges, insisted on quality debates over the turmoilfaced by his country of 170 people. Even the high school students became thevictims as they joined the anti-quota movement that began on 1 July following acourt order reinstating the reservation facility in all government jobs for thedependents of war veterans, he added.

Though it began with a peaceful protest demonstration on theprestigious Dhaka University campus demanding the reservation quota for thedependents of  freedom fighters’ families (who fought against the brutalPakistani forces) to be abolished, it spread quickly to other universitycampuses and cities to emerge as a national outrage against the Hasinagovernment. The general population, who are seemingly unhappy with the Hasinaregime that achieved the fourth consecutive victory on 7 January 2024 nationalelections with no opposition candidates on the field, joined the movement.

The ruling party leaders including some ministers inHasina’s cabinet alleged that the anti-quota  movement was hijacked by theBangladesh Nationalist Party along with radicalized  Jamaat-e-Islamiworkers to topple the government. They claimed that the so-called agitatorswith the endorsement of BNP leaders indulged in violent activities. BNP chiefKhaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman, who is living in exile for years, wasalso  accused of hatching a conspiracy against the government. (Photo by Dhaka Tribune and PTI)