DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Several major universities in Bangladesh shut their doors Wednesday or promised to, after at least six people died in violent campus protests over the allocation of government jobs and police raided the headquarters of the main opposition party.
After two days of clashes, the University Grants Commission urged all public and private universities to shut until further notice, and about a dozen major public universities said they would, according to officials and media reports.
Among them was Dhaka University, which is at the center of the violence and decided to suspend classes and close its dormitories indefinitely, a university official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media. Wednesday was a public holiday in Bangladesh and the number of closures would become clearer on Thursday.
Protesters are demanding an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30% of government jobs for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971.
They argue the system is discriminatory and benefits supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement, and want it replaced with a merit-based one.
Quotas were halted by a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh’s High Court nullified that decision, reinstating the system and triggering new demonstrations last month. While that court order has since been suspended, the protests have continued and turned violent this week.
The clashes come months after Hasina maintained power in an election that was boycotted by opposition parties and saw opposition members jailed ahead of the polls.
Authorities said that at least six people were killed on Tuesday in violence across the country as student protesters clashed with pro-government student activists and with police. Violence was reported around the capital, Dhaka, the southeastern city of Chattogram and the northern city of Rangpur.
There were new clashes on Wednesday.
Bangladesh’s ruling party blamed the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party for the chaos, and Dhaka police raided the party’s headquarters overnight.
Detective chief Harun-or-Rashid told reporters that police had arrested seven members of the party’s student wing in connection with two buses that were set on fire Tuesday. He added that detectives found 100 crude bombs, 500 wooden and bamboo sticks, and five to six bottles of gasoline in the raid.
Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, a senior BNP leader, accused the government of “staging” the raid to divert attention from protests.
On Wednesday, police clashed with BNP supporters in Dhaka after a funeral for the six people who died a day earlier.
Police official Sentu Mia said they used rubber bullets to disperse the opposition activists after they attacked police, and several opposition activists were arrested.
BNP Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir accused police of barring their supporters from the funeral prayers.
Stray protests also took place at Dhaka University and elsewhere in the country. Police were deployed to the campus, while paramilitary border forces patrolled the streets of the capital and other big cities.
A senior leader of the ruling Awami League party said the opposition was using the protests as a weapon against Hasina. Obaidul Quader, the Awami League’s general secretary and a senior Cabinet minister, said that “evil forces” have taken over the student movement, blaming the student wings of the BNP and rightist Jamaat-e-Islami party for Tuesday’s violence.
He urged the protesters to have patience until the country’s Supreme Court hears petitions involving the quota issues next month.
The protests began late last month but turned violent on Monday as protesters at Dhaka University clashed with police and counterprotesters organized by the student wing of the governing Awami League party, leaving 100 people injured.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, people with disabilities and members of ethnic minorities, but protesters have only sought to end the quota for families of veterans. Protesters have said they are apolitical.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh’s private sector, many people prefer government jobs because they are seen as stable and high-paying. Each year, nearly 400,000 graduates compete for 3,000 such jobs in the civil service exam.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the order by the High Court that reinstated the quotas, and the chief justice asked students to return to classes. But the protests continued.
Hasina defended the quota system Tuesday, saying that veterans deserve the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political affiliation.
“Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had,” she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Her Awami League party, under her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with many family members in a military coup in 1975.
