Crackdown on students’ job quota protests: BNP calls fresh movement

Job quota protests at a major private university in Dhaka City

A violent crackdown on at least 10 million job quota protesters comprising Secondary, Higher Secondary and University students of Bangladesh has turned a simple agitation for a fair chance for recruitment to government jobs into a mass movement against the government.

The crackdown involving all security forces from the Police, the paramilitary Bangladesh Border Guard, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the Bangladesh Army plus the ruling party’s vigilante groups saw indiscriminate firing even from helicopters on unarmed students and civilians who joined the students in support, cost more than 200 lives according to counts made so far.

The government imposed countrywide curfew, suspended the Internet cutting the people off from day-to-day communication within Bangladesh and the outside world, cut off all modes of transportation from July 18 evening to quell the rebellion.

Protesters have now gone off the streets but an uneasy calm is prevailing everywhere, as the government is extending the undeclared emergency by not withdrawing curfew; suspension of train services, mobile phone internet and social media services; only partially restoring Internet services after 5 days. The students have given a pause in the movement forwarding a 9-point charter of demands which call for the Prime Minister to accept the responsibility for the killings and sorry, wants resignation of the general secretary of the ruling Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader who is also a minister, plus resignation of three other ministers for their objectionable roles.

The demands also stand for dismissal of police officers responsible for killing students, their arrest and filing of cases against them; resignation of the administrations of public universities who created obstructions to the student agitations; implementation of the court verdict for reducing job quota to seven percent, through the enactment of law. The coordinators of the students’ movement also want commitment in public not to take administrative or academic measures against the students for waging the movement.

The whole thing started with the High Court rejecting on June 5 the abolition of job quotas by the government in the face of a similar student-movement way back in 2018. This meant reinstating of 56 percent job quotas keeping only 44 percent to competition on the basis of merit that too plagued by corruption in recruitment, including leakage of questions of competitive tests.

University students protested against this and from the beginning of July gave representations to the President and the relevant ministries demanding reform of the job quota system. But none paid heed to them.

Against this discontent among the university students, the Prime Minister Made a disparaging remark in reply to a question at her July 14 press briefing on her recent China visit. The PM was quoted as saying, "Why do they have so much resentment towards the freedom fighters?" If the grand children of the freedom fighters don't get quota benefits, should the grand children of Razakars get the same?"

Students of Dhaka, Rajshahi, Janangirnagar and Chittagong Universities brought out instantaneous protest processions on their campuses late in that evening chanting slogans, “Tumi ke Ami ke Razakar Razakar” and staged demonstrations at all universities on July 15. Fuel was added to the fire when the AL general secretary Obaidul Quader called the AL student wing, Bangladesh Chhatra League members to face the job quota protesters on the street. Limited violence marked the July 15 protests. The AL leader also said that law enforcers would take stern action against trouble-mongers. On the demands of the agitating students he said that the Appellate Davison of the Supreme Court will take an appropriate decision.              

On July 16 the protests spread to all public and private universities and six students fell to bullets fired by police. The movement was electrified by the direct shooting to death of Abu Sayeed, final year student of Begum Rokeya University Rangpur and acoordinator of the movement as he showed police his chest spreading his arms to hit. The Prime Minister addressed the nation over radio and television, but her words did not succeed to calm the angry students.

The following two days of movement were unprecedented in Bangladesh as even students of colleges and secondary schools plus workers of sympathetic political parties joined the movement. At least 10 million demonstrators, male and female, were on the streets across Bangladesh on the two days marked by police and AL vigilante group firings and their street battles with protesters.

BCL groups were ousted from their 15-year-long strongholds at the dormitories of Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chattogram, Jahangirnagar and other universities. Law enforcing agencies displayed a disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force which included firing teargas shells and live bullets at protesters from helicopters in Jatrabari, Badda, Kajla, Narayanganj and other places where even innocent children playing on rooftops of buildings or studying by sitting beside windows of buildings or standing on verandas were hit and killed. Four bodies of students were recovered from a locked up wash room at the Dhaka University.

Internet was shut down on late July 18 evening and the Army called in to restore law and order. Sporadic clashes however continued for the next three days in Dhaka, its suburbs and some other districts.

The government blamed the setting fire to some installations including the Bangladesh Television head office, two stations of Metro Rail, and the Disaster Management building at Mohakhali on opposition BNP and Jamaat. Several thousand political leaders and workers have been arrested in cases filed in this connection.

At least four coordinators of the student movement were picked up and tortured at undisclosed places, pressured to call off the movement and dropped blindfolded at different spots. Cases have been filed against agitating students. The AL has dissolved its 27 Ward committees in Dhaka City for 'not properly playing their roles to face the movement. The government is apparently trying to create division among the coordinators of the movement. Five key coordinators have again been picked up, three of them from under tratment of wounds from otrture at a hospital, and taken to detective Branch custody.

Meanwhile, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in an early session on July 21 ordered by the Chamber Judge rejected the June 5 High Court Division verdict and earmarked 7 percent quota for wards of freedom fighters, disabled and third gender people. Students however want implementation of the verdict and punishment of those who killed students during their movement. They threaten to resume the movement anytime if their demands are not met.

As the government has charged the opposition BNP and the Jamaat for setting fire to some government establshments, BNP leader leader Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has said the charges of violence made against the opposition was imaginary and the arrests were meant to divert the attention of the people from the "mass killings". He repeated their demand for the government to resign and hold fresh elections under a caretaker government. He has also called for a national unity of opposition political parties and organisations for a united movement to compel the government to resign. The government has arrested 9000 political workers and students till July 25 in dozens of sabotage cases across the country. Arrests are continuing.

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutierres on July 18 expressed his deep concern over the violence on the students while the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk on July 25 demanded of the government to provide details about the crackdown, create conditions for dialogue and to restore Internet access to people.  

Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus made an urgent appeal to world leaders and the UN on July 21 to stop "the nationwide killing spree". Curfew still remains in force, internet has only been partially restored and rail communication remains suspended.