Bangladesh army out in force as PM cancels foreign trip

DHAKA

Soldiers were out in force Saturday in cities around Bangladesh after another day of lethal clashes between student protesters and police prompted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to cancel a foreign diplomatic tour.

This week's violence has killed at least 115 people so far, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, and poses a monumental challenge to Hasina's autocratic government after 15 years in office.

A government curfew went into effect at midnight and the premier's office asked the military to deploy troops after police again failed to subdue widespread mayhem.

"The army has been deployed nationwide to control the law and order situation," armed forces spokesman Shahdat Hossain told AFP.

The curfew will remain in effect until at least 10:00 am (0400 GMT) Sunday, private broadcaster Channel 24 reported.

"Hundreds of thousands of people" had battled police across the capital Dhaka on Friday, police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP.

"At least 150 police officers were admitted to hospital. Another 150 were given first aid treatment," he said, adding that two officers had been beaten to death.

"The protesters torched many police booths... Many government offices were torched and vandalised."

Streets of the capital Dhaka were almost deserted at daybreak, with troops on foot and in armoured personnel carriers patrolling the sprawling megacity of 20 million.

Hundreds of protesters defied the stay-home order in the residential neighbourhood of Rampur but were quickly dispersed by police firing rubber bullets, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.

A spokesman for Students Against Discrimination, the main organising group of the protests, told AFP that two of its leaders had been arrested since Friday.

And a second senior official from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was arrested in the early hours of Saturday, party spokesman Sairul Islam Khan told AFP.

Thousands of people besieged a police base in Rangpur on Friday night, a senior police official in the northern city told AFP, with three protesters killed.

Hasina had been due to leave the country on Sunday for a planned diplomatic tour but abandoned her plans after a week of escalating violence.

"She has cancelled her Spain and Brazil tours due to the prevailing situation, her press secretary Nayeemul Islam Khan told AFP.

  'Frustration has been mounting' 

Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Hasina's government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Since the first deaths on Tuesday, protesters have begun demanding Hasina leave office.

"Frustration has been mounting in Bangladesh because the country has not had a genuinely competitive national election for more than 15 years," Pierre Prakash of Crisis Group told AFP.

"With no real alternative at the ballot box, discontented Bangladeshis have few options besides street protests to make their voices heard."

  'Shocking indictment' 

Hospitals and police reported an additional 10 deaths to AFP on Saturday from clashes the previous day, with 105 other deaths reported since Tuesday.

Police fire was the cause of more than half of the deaths reported so far this week, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff.

"The rising death toll is a shocking indictment of the absolute intolerance shown by the Bangladeshi authorities to protest and dissent," Babu Ram Pant of Amnesty International said in a statement.

Authorities imposed a nationwide internet shutdown on Thursday which remains in effect, severely hampering communication in and out of Bangladesh.

Government websites remain offline and major newspapers including the Dhaka Tribune and Daily Star have been unable to update their social media platforms since Thursday.

Bangladesh Television, the state broadcaster, also remains offline after its Dhaka headquarters was set on fire by protesters the same day.