Written by Sam Jahan and Sudipto Ganguly
DHAKA (Reuters) – Soldiers patrolled the deserted streets of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka on Saturday, setting up roadblocks during a curfew imposed in response to student-led protests against government job quotas that have killed at least 110 people this week.
Internet and text messaging services have been suspended since Thursday, cutting off the country as police crack down on protesters who defied a ban on public gatherings.
Most overseas phone calls were unable to connect, while the websites of Bangladesh-based media organizations were not updated and their social media accounts remained inactive.
“Cutting off the internet to a country of about 170 million people is a radical step, one we haven’t seen since the Egyptian revolution in 2011,” said John Heydemann, senior scientist in the Department of Networks and Cybersecurity at the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California in Viterbi.
The internet outage has left many people unable to recharge their electricity meters, leaving them without electricity.
In addition to the dead, the clashes have left thousands injured, according to hospitals across Bangladesh. Dhaka Medical College Hospital received 27 bodies between 5pm and 7pm (1100-1200 GMT) on Friday.
For five days, police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse protesters who were throwing stones and setting vehicles on fire.
The demonstrations – the largest since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was re-elected to a fourth consecutive term this year – have been fuelled by high unemployment among young people, who make up nearly a fifth of the population.
With the death toll rising and police and other security forces unable to contain the protests, Hasina’s government imposed a nationwide curfew and deployed the military, which has been ordered to shoot on sight if necessary.
The curfew was eased for two hours from noon on Saturday to allow people to shop, buy supplies and complete other errands, television channels reported. The reports added that the curfew will last until 10 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Sunday when the government will assess the situation and decide on its next course of action.
stones and debris
Army personnel checked the identity cards of the adventurers at checkpoints. Television footage showed troops setting up roadblocks and sandbag bunkers at strategic locations in Dhaka, the epicentre of the protests.
Reuters TV footage showed armed soldiers scanning roads strewn with rocks and debris as shops remained closed. Trees and barricades were uprooted from streets where vehicles lay burned. Youths played football on a deserted road as the curfew was eased.
Unrest erupted across the country as students became angry over government job quotas, which included a 30% allocation for families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan.
Hasina’s government had scrapped the quota system in 2018, but the court reinstated it last month. The Supreme Court suspended the decision after the government appealed and will hear the case on Sunday after agreeing to bring forward the hearing, which was previously scheduled for August 7.
In central Bangladesh’s Narsingdi district, protesters stormed a jail on Friday, freeing more than 850 inmates and setting fire to the facility, television channels reported, citing police. There were also reports of scattered arson attacks on Saturday in some parts of the country.
Hasina has cancelled plans to leave on Sunday to visit Spain and Brazil due to the protests, Foreign Minister Hassan Mahmood’s office said.
Tarique Rahman, acting president of Bangladesh’s main opposition party, said several opposition party leaders, activists and student protesters had been arrested. Protesters said in a text message that police arrested Nahid Islam, a prominent student coordinator, at 2 a.m. Saturday.
Reuters could not independently verify the arrests.
Neighbouring India said about 1,000 Indian students had returned home since the violence began.
“The high death toll is a shocking indictment of the Bangladeshi authorities’ absolute intolerance of protest and dissent,” said Babu Ram Pant, deputy regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International, one of several rights groups that have criticised the government’s handling of the protests.
(Reporting by Sam Jahan in Dhaka and Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; Writing by Sudipto Ganguly and Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Sam Holmes, William Mallard and Giles Elgood)