2024-08-07 10:12:04
As a result, Monday has become the day in which the number of deaths is the highest since the beginning of the protests in early July, and the total number of deaths in the protests has reached 409, according to the data compiled by the AFP agency, based on the information provided by the police, government officials and hospital doctors.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of protest-hit Bangladesh reportedly fled the country on Monday, while army chief General Waqar uz Zaman said the military would form an interim government.
Hasina, who has been in power in the country since 2009, refused to step down for several weeks, but fled the country after the dramatic Sunday when nearly 100 people lost their lives in clashes between protesters and the police.
Millions of people took to the streets across the country on Monday, many of them celebrating the news of the end of Hasina’s rule peacefully. However, mobs broke into both Hasina’s residence and also attacked the homes of the prime minister’s allies. Buildings of television channels supported by the prime minister, the offices of Hasina’s Awami League were burnt, and statues of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the country’s independence movement, were smashed.
Protests in Bangladesh began last month with student demands to abolish quotas in the civil service, but later turned into a wider anti-government movement.
Leaders of the student protests said on Tuesday they would not accept military rule and called for a new interim government with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus as its chief adviser.
2024-08-07 10:12:04