WASHINGTON — Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country Monday after clashes between student protesters and police left nearly 300 people dead.
Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman announced an interim government and promised to investigate the deaths, urging everyone to remain peaceful. The protests started over a controversial job quota system but escalated due to the government's harsh response.
Here is a timeline of events leading up to the prime minister’s resignation.
July 2: Demonstrations take place in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, to demand the cancellation of a quota system in civil service recruitment, which reserves 56% of jobs for people from various categories. Students say this is discriminatory.
The demonstrations started after the High Court reinstated the quota system in June, overturning a 2018 government decision to abolish it. While the government appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, students refused to wait for the outcome and demanded a new executive order canceling the quotas.
July 10-12: Students stage sit-in demonstrations at various key intersections in the capital and highways outside the city, disrupting traffic on roads, highways and railways.
July 14: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina makes comments critical of the students' demands to scrap the quotas for children and grandchildren of war veterans. Students express outrage.
July 15: A senior leader of a major political party, the Awami League, tells media that the party’s student wing, the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) will give a “fitting reply” to students.
July 15: Activists of BCL attack anti-quota students at Dhaka University and at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, including injured students at the medical college. Over 300 are wounded in the clashes.
July 16: Clashes spread and at least six are killed in Dhaka, Chottogram and Rangpur in the north. Ordinary students fight back and drive the BCL group out of Dhaka and Rajshahi Universities and ransack their leaders’ rooms in university campuses.
July 17: Students try to hold “absentee funerals” for those who were killed, but police attack their gatherings at three universities. University authorities’ close campuses and order students to vacate their dormitories.
July 17: Hasina addresses the nation on television, expresses sorrow over the deaths and announces she will set up a judicial inquiry to hold perpetrators to account. On the matter of quotas, she urges students to wait for the verdict of the Supreme Court and suggests the decision will not disappoint them.
Students respond by calling for a “complete shutdown” of transportation across the country for the next day.
July 18: The “complete shutdown” program sees massive violence in Dhaka and in 19 other districts. At least 29 people are confirmed dead as police and unidentified people open fire – including with live bullets, shotgun pellets and rubber bullets. Tens of thousands of students are joined by various other groups of people to enforce the shutdown of transportation. Cars, buses, and the state-run television center in Dhaka are set on fire and the city’s Metro Rail transport network is shut down indefinitely.
July 19: At least 66 people are killed in clashes involving protesters and police. A mob frees nearly 900 inmates from a jail in central Narsingdi district and loots some 80 firearms and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition. The government declares a nighttime curfew and deploys the army to help maintain order.
July 20: At least 21 people are killed in the first day of curfew. The government announces two days of “general holiday” while leaders of the quota movement and some leaders of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are detained.
July 21: The Supreme Court delivers its verdict in the quota case, abolishing most of the quotas for civil service jobs and leaving 93% of spaces for general applicants. The curfew continues, and seven more people are killed.
July 23: The government formalizes the new quota allocation in line with the Supreme Court verdict. But organizers of student protests say it’s too little, too late, and that too many people have been killed. The Daily Star newspaper puts the death toll at 146. The arrest of opposition leaders continues.
July 26: The Detective Branch of Bangladesh’s police department picks up three organizers of the student movement. The BNP calls for the ouster of the government.
July 27: Diplomatic missions of 14 Western countries in Dhaka issue a joint letter, calling for law enforcers to be held accountable for wrongdoings. The Detective Branch picks up two more organizers of the student movement. Police continue raids to arrest students.
July 28: Six organizers of the student movement, while in Detective Branch custody, read out a statement ending their agitation. But their colleagues vow to continue with the movement and protests resume the next day.
July 31: The government observes a “mourning day” in memory of those who lost their lives in the violence, but students reject the day. Supporters of the student movement turn their social media profiles red to show their rejection.
Aug. 1: The government issues a notification banning the Jamaat-e-Islami party and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, as well as its affiliates. The party is accused of being a terrorist entity. Six organizers of the movement are released from police custody.
Aug. 3: Student organizers make a demand at a major rally in Dhaka – the resignation of Hasina and the formation of a “national government” headed by a person who is “acceptable to all.” Hasina offers talks but students reject them.
Aug. 4: Widespread clashes break out in Dhaka and in at least 21 districts of the country. Media reports say at least 90 people are killed in the violence. The dead include 13 policemen who are beaten to death by a mob in Sirajganj. The government reimposes an indefinite curfew across the country.
Students announce a plan to hold a march to Dhaka from all parts of the country with the aim to force the government to resign. The army and police urge people not to break curfew or defy the law.
Aug. 5: Tens of thousands of people from different parts of Dhaka and the surrounding areas defy the curfew to converge on the capital’s center. The army initially tries to stop the flow but then allows people to enter. Crowds storm Hasina’s official residence.
By the afternoon, Hasina hands her resignation letter to President Mohammed Shahabuddin and, along with her sister Sheikh Rehana, flies to neighboring India. Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman invites several political parties for talks, including Jamaat-e-Islami, which the government had banned only days earlier. The general says an interim government will be formed following consultation with the president.
The army chief promises justice for the 300 people who died during the 20 days of violent protests and urges the jubilant crowds to calm down and go home. But groups of people attack several offices of the outgoing ruling party, as well as a museum dedicated to Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a founding father of the country.
This story originated in VOA’s Bangla service.
