3 Bangladesh Student Leaders Taken Into Custody for Safety

_{Photo: AFP}

Dhaka: Bangladesh stated that three student leaders were taken into custody for their own safety after the government blamed their protests against civil service job quotas for days of deadly nationwide unrest.

Students Against Discrimination head Nahid Islam and two senior members of the protest group were forcibly discharged from the hospital on Friday and taken away by plainclothes detectives.

The street rallies organized by the trio led to a police crackdown and days of clashes between officers and protesters, resulting in at least 201 deaths, according to an AFP tally of hospital and police data.

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Islam, who was being treated at a hospital in Dhaka for injuries inflicted by police during a previous detention, had told AFP earlier this week about his concerns for his safety.

Initially, police denied that Islam and his colleagues were in custody, but home minister Asaduzzaman Khan confirmed it late on Friday, saying, "They themselves were feeling insecure. They think that some people were threatening them. That's why we think for their own security they needed to be interrogated to find out who was threatening them. After the interrogation, we will take the next course of action."

Khan did not confirm if the trio had been formally arrested.

The unrest saw government buildings and police posts torched in Dhaka and fierce street battles between protesters and riot police across the country. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government deployed troops, imposed a nationwide internet blackout, and enforced a curfew to restore order.

The violence began when police and pro-government student groups attacked peaceful street rallies organized by Students Against Discrimination.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of the group, told AFP from his hospital bed that he feared for his life after being blindfolded, handcuffed, and tortured by people identifying themselves as police detectives. His colleague Asif Mahmud, also taken into custody at the hospital, reported similar experiences.

Police have arrested at least 4,500 people since the unrest began. Dhaka Metropolitan Police joint commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarker stated, "We're not arresting general students, only those who vandalized government properties and set them on fire."

The protests were sparked by the June reintroduction of a scheme reserving more than half of all government jobs for certain candidates, which upset many graduates facing an acute jobs crisis. Critics argue the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

The Supreme Court reduced the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but did not meet the protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina, who has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January, is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to maintain power and suppress dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

On Saturday, Hasina surveyed some of the damage caused during the unrest, saying, "This does nothing but cripple our economy and turn us into a nation of beggars. I want justice."

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