DHAKA: A Bangladeshi student group has vowed to resume protests that have sparked a deadly police crackdown and nationwide unrest unless several of its leaders are released from custody on Sunday.
Last week’s violence killed at least 205 people, according to an AFP tally from police and hospital figures, in one of the biggest upheavals of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Army patrols and a nationwide curfew remain in place more than a week after they were imposed, and a police dragnet has caught thousands of protesters, including at least half a dozen student leaders.
Masud, who did not reveal his location because he was hiding from the authorities, also demanded that “visible actions” be taken against government ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.
Islam and two other high-ranking members of the protest group were forcibly released from a hospital in the capital Dhaka on Friday and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.
Islam told AFP earlier in the week that he was being treated in hospital for injuries inflicted by police during a previous round of detentions and said he feared for his life.
Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters on Friday that the trio had been taken into custody for their own safety, but did not confirm whether they had been formally arrested.
Police told AFP on Sunday that detectives had taken two more into custody, while activist Students Against Discrimination told AFP that a third had been arrested on Sunday morning.
While the curfew imposed last weekend remains in place, it was gradually eased over the course of the week, a sign of Hasina’s government’s confidence that order is gradually being restored.
Bangladesh’s mobile internet network was restored in the afternoon, 11 days after a nationwide blackout at the height of the unrest.
Fixed broadband connections had already been restored on Tuesday, but the vast majority of Bangladesh’s 141 million internet users rely on their mobile devices to connect with the world, according to the country’s telecommunications regulator.
Protests began this month against the reintroduction of a quota system that reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.
With around 18 million young Bangladeshis out of work, according to government figures, the move has deeply upset graduates who are facing an acute employment crisis.
Critics say the quota is being used to hoard public jobs with loyalists to the ruling Awami League.
The Supreme Court last week reduced the number of reserved jobs, but did not meet the protesters’ demands for a complete abolition of quotas.
Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after being voted out without real opposition.
Her government has been accused by human rights groups of abusing state institutions to consolidate power and suppress dissent, including extrajudicially killing opposition activists.
