At least 70 dead as Bangladesh protests grow; curfew reinstated

DHAKA, Bangladesh – At least 70 people were killed in clashes between security forces and protesters on Sunday in Bangladesh, as the country’s leaders imposed a new curfew and internet restrictions to try to quell a growing anti-government movement.

The revival of student protests after a deadly government crackdown late last month, as well as a call by the governing party for its own supporters to take to the streets, has plunged the country of over 170 million into a particularly dangerous phase.

The exact number of deaths in the violence Sunday was unclear, but it appeared to be the deadliest day since the protests began in July. A diplomatic official in Dhaka, the capital, said the toll across Bangladesh was at least 72, while tallies by local news media and the protest coordinators put the count at anywhere from 70 to 93. At least 13 of the dead were police officers, the country’s Police Headquarters said in a statement.

Sunday’s toll added to the more than 200 people killed in the crackdown on protesters last month by security forces under Bangladesh’s increasingly authoritarian leader, Sheikh Hasina. In a sign of the risk of further violence, the protest coordinators said they would march toward Hasina’s official residence Monday.

In a meeting with her top security officials Sunday, Hasina called those behind the violence “terrorists” and asked the country’s people “to curb anarchists with iron hands,” Bangladesh’s state news agency reported.

Over the weekend, the tensions flared into the kind of localized clashes nationwide that appeared difficult to contain. With the public angry at the police forces, seeing them as an overzealous extension of Hasina’s entrenched authority, attention focused on Bangladesh’s powerful military.

Hasina has worked to bring the military to heel. But it has a history of staging coups and was being watched for how it positions itself in the escalating crisis.

What began as a peaceful student protest last month over a preferential quota system for public-sector jobs has morphed into unprecedented anger at Hasina’s growing autocracy and her management of the economy.

While the crackdown, which included the arrests of more than 10,000 people and the lodging of police cases against tens of thousands more, temporarily dispersed the protesters, the demonstrations have been back in full force since Friday.

The protesters’ anger over the large number of deaths has solidified their demands to a single point: On Saturday, at a rally of tens of thousands, they demanded the resignation of Hasina, who has been in power for the past 15 years.

In response to the resignation call, her Awami League party called on its supporters to join counterprotests – setting up the tense situation that unfolded Sunday. In a statement sent to the news media Sunday, as internet restrictions went into effect, leaders of the student movement called for the protests to continue uninterrupted.

“If there is an internet crackdown, if we are disappeared, arrested or killed, and if there is no one left to make announcements, everyone should continue to occupy the streets and maintain peaceful noncooperation until the government falls in response to our one demand,” Nahid Islam, one of the movement’s leaders, said in the statement.

As the chaos escalates, with the protesters and Hasina’s party digging in their heels, and as opposition parties take the opportunity to pile on, the country’s military may help determine what happens next.

The army and other security forces were deployed during the crackdown in July. On Sunday, however, the army’s chief, Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, gathered senior officers for a meeting that was seen as an attempt to allay concerns over the army’s position in the crisis and reinforce its neutrality.

In a statement issued after the meeting, the army said its chief had reiterated that “the Bangladesh army will always stand by the people in the interest of the public and in any need of the state.”

Reports from student protesters and diplomatic officials about the army’s conduct on Sunday were mixed. While in some parts of the country the army cracked down on the protesters, in other places, it was seen protecting them against attacks by the governing party’s youth wing.

In announcing the reinstatement of the curfew, the army said it would “carry out its pledged duties in accordance with the Constitution and the country’s prevailing laws.”

While the army was long prone to staging coups, it has grown more disciplined in recent years, exercising its influence from behind the scenes.

Analysts attribute that to a combination of factors: Hasina’s stacking of the top ranks with loyalists, and the lucrative business of United Nations peacekeeping, to which Bangladesh’s army is a major contributor. Human rights abuses like those attributed to other forces under Hasina, or involvement in a coup, would have international ramifications.

In an indication of the growing pressure on the army to stick to a neutral position, dozens of former officers – including a former army chief – held a news conference Sunday in Dhaka and called on the military to withdraw its forces from the streets.

“We are deeply concerned, troubled and saddened by all the egregious killings, tortures, disappearances and mass arrests that have been tormenting Bangladesh over the past three weeks,” Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan, who served as army chief from 2012-15, said in a statement on behalf of the former officers. “In no way our armed forces should come forward to rescue those who have created this current situation.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.