Dhaka: Bangladesh police have discharged and arrested a leader of a student protest that sparked nationwide unrest last week, after security forces clashed with protesters.
Since early July, students have been protesting a law that reserves government jobs for children of soldiers who fought in the 1971 War of Liberation.
At least 209 people were killed and thousands injured, local media reported, after protests turned violent last week.
Most of the injuries and deaths were reported in Dhaka, where violent clashes between protesters, pro-government supporters, police and paramilitary forces disrupted the country's communications for six days.
Among the injured were student leader Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmoud, a coordinator of the Students Against Discrimination group, the main group that organized the protest. Both were patients at the Konoshtia Hospital in Dhaka and were arrested by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police's investigation division late Friday. Another student leader who had visited the Islam Mosque and Mahmoud, Abu Baker Majumder, was also detained.
The three suspects were being held “for security reasons” as their families were concerned about their safety, Harun Or-Rashid, head of the investigation division, told reporters in Dhaka on Saturday.
“We detained them to keep them safe,” he said.
More than a dozen plainclothes officers arrested student leaders despite protests from medical staff, hospital officials told Arab News.
“Initially, we tried to make them understand that if there are no proper measures, patients who are admitted cannot be discharged. Later, they spoke to our staff and the students were discharged. There is no way we can continue to quarantine them,” the hospital official said, requesting anonymity.
“The health of the students is not very good… Asif has low blood pressure and Nahid has blood clots and bruises on various parts of his body. Both of them need further treatment.”
The arrests follow a crackdown launched by police in Dhaka, where a curfew was still in effect last week.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Litan Kumar Saha said 2,284 people had been arrested in Dhaka in protest-related clashes that saw several administrative offices set on fire.
“We are analyzing images from different locations and identifying the perpetrators. Once we confirm that someone is involved in the riots, we will take action to arrest them. This operation is done in a transparent manner and we are investigating those involved in sabotage,” he told Arab News.
“In the last 24 hours, 245 people have been arrested in Dhaka. We will continue until the situation returns to normalcy,”
International human rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern about Bangladesh's handling of the protests, with Amnesty International saying witness testimonies, video and photographic evidence “confirm the police's unlawful use of force against student protesters”.
The protests erupted after the Supreme Court struck down a controversial quota system that allocated 56 per cent of public jobs to specific groups such as women, marginalised communities and children of freedom fighters, with the government allocating 30 per cent of jobs.
Last week, the Supreme Court upended the quota system, ordering 93 percent of government jobs to be allocated based on performance.
