Troops took up positions around the Bangladeshi capital and in all major cities and towns on Sunday after the government ordered the deployment to ensure a peaceful run-up to elections next month. In Dhaka, soldiers entered the presidential compound, Bangabhaban, and other locations including the university campus.
Hours after the army took over security of the presidential palace, police and paramilitary troops guarding it were withdrawn, witnesses said.
President Iajuddin Ahmed ordered the deployment on Saturday amid a deterioration of public order and threats by a multi-party alliance led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, head of the Awami League, to besiege the president's palace.
The campus is a hotbed of support for both Hasina and her main rival in the January 23 elections, former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia. Officials said the troops would help civil authorities keep order until a new government takes office after the election.
But two of the 10 members of the interim administration's advisory council said the deployment could complicate the political situation, despite weeks of violent protests and clashes between political activists.
Both Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury, predecessor of the current army chief and council member C.M. Shafi Sami made public comments disagreeing with the deployment.
Defence analyst Shakawat Hossain, a retired army brigadier, said: "Just deployment of the army ... is not going to solve the country's political problems. If the president felt it necessary, he should have proclaimed a state of emergency."
Hasina told reporters on Sunday evening the president had "trampled on people's wishes by summoning the army."
"There was no threat to (his) security or to that of the country that could warrant the army's deployment. People will give their response to such excesses," Hasina added. She was speaking after a meeting with her alliance partners, who she said would closely monitor the activities of the interim government.
BNP secretary-general Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan said the president had no alternative but to deploy the army while a major alliance seeks to push the country into anarchy and lawlessness.
"He was absolutely right," Bhuiyan said.
PROTEST MARCH:
Despite the army's presence, thousands of supporters of Hasina's Awami League marched through Dhaka, demanding that the president step down as head of the interim administration.
"He is playing a game dictated by his political masters and now trying to make the army controversial," said Jahangir Kabir Nanak, head of the Awami Youth League.
"We believe the army will not try to harass our leaders and activists," he told the marchers. Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist Party has repeatedly accused the Awami League of trying to sabotage the election with strikes and protests, and has welcomed the use of the army.
At least 44 people have been killed and hundreds injured in clashes between political activists since late October. Abdul Jalil, general secretary of the Awami League and coordinator of the 14-party alliance, gave a cautious reaction to the army deployment.
"We will observe their activities," he said. "If they take action against the corrupt and criminals, we will welcome them with flowers."
Khaleda ended her five-year tenure as prime minister late in October and handed power to the interim government, intended to oversee the polls. Khaleda and Hasina have alternated as premiers of impoverished Bangladesh for the last 15 years.
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