DHAKA: Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wept Thursday as she surveyed the destruction wrought by days of deadly unrest, as student leaders weighed the future of the protests that precipitated the disorder.
Last week’s violence killed at least 193 people including several police officers, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in one of the biggest upheavals of Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
The unrest was sparked by protests against a public jobs quota scheme that critics say gives preference to allies of Hasina’s ruling party.
Thousands of troops are still patrolling cities and a nationwide internet shutdown remains largely in effect, but clashes have subsided since protest leaders announced a temporary halt to new demonstrations.
Hasina, 76, spent the morning surveying destruction in the capital Dhaka, where the commuter rail connecting the sprawling megacity of 20 million people was shut down after mob attacks on its network.
Bangladesh garment factories reopen after unrest
“Over 15 years, I’ve built this country,” she told reporters afterwards, in a condemnation of protesters for damaging city infrastructure. “What didn’t I do for the people?
“Who has benefitted from what we have done?” she added. “Do I ride on the metro? Does the government only ride? Do our ministers only ride? Or is it in fact the general public that rides?”
Pictures released by Hasina’s office showed the premier flanked by an entourage and weeping at the sight of a vandalised metro station in an outlying Dhaka suburb.
The station is among several government buildings and dozens of police posts torched or vandalised during the height of last week’s unrest.
With calm returning to cities around Bangladesh, Hasina’s government ordered another relaxation to the curfew it imposed on the weekend, allowing free movement for seven hours between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm.
Streets in Dhaka were choked with commuter traffic in the morning, days after ferocious clashes between police and protesters had left them almost deserted.
Banks, government offices and the country’s economically vital garment factories had already reopened on Wednesday after all being shuttered last week.
Student leaders were meanwhile set to meet later Thursday to decide whether or not to again extend their protest moratorium, which is due to expire on Friday.
Bangladesh PM blames opposition for violence
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organising this month’s rallies, said it expected the government to make some concessions.
“We demand an apology from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the nation for the mass murder of students,” Asif Mahmud, one of the group’s coordinators, told AFP.
“We also want the sacking of the home minister and education minister.”
Mahmud added that the estimated toll in the unrest was understated, with his group working on its own list of confirmed deaths.
Youth jobs crisis
Police have arrested at least 2,500 people since the violence began last week, according to an AFP tally.
Protests began after the June reintroduction of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates, including nearly a third for descendants of veterans from Bangladesh’s independence war.
With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.
Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina’s Awami League.
The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters’ demands to scrap the quotas entirely.
Hasina has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.
Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
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