Television news channels in Bangladesh went off the air and telecommunications were widely disrupted on Friday amid violent student protests against quotas for government jobs, resulting in nearly two dozen deaths this week.
There was no immediate response from the government.
French news agency AFP reported that the death toll from Thursday’s violence had risen to 32. Reuters had earlier reported 13 deaths, adding to the six killed earlier in the week, but could not immediately verify the higher number.
India’s Economic Times reported that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government “was forced” to call in the army late on Thursday to help “maintain order,” a claim Reuters could not independently verify.
Authorities had cut some mobile services on Thursday to try to quell the unrest, but the disruption spread across the country on Friday morning, according to Reuters witnesses in Dhaka and New Delhi.
Overseas telephone calls were mostly not getting through, and internet-based calls were also not connecting.
Websites of several Bangladesh-based newspapers were not updating on Friday morning, and their social media handles were also inactive.
Only some voice calls were working in the country, with no mobile data or broadband available, a Reuters photographer in Dhaka reported. Even SMS or mobile-to-mobile text messages were not going through, he added.
News television channels and state broadcaster BTV were off the air, while entertainment channels continued normal transmission, according to a Reuters witness. Some news channels displayed a message stating they were unable to broadcast due to technical reasons and would resume programming soon.
Streets in the capital, Dhaka, were deserted on Friday, a weekly holiday in the country. There was little traffic and very few rickshaw pullers on the streets, with thin crowds near a vegetable and fish market. A protest rally had been called at the main mosque at around 0800 GMT.
The nationwide agitation, the biggest since Hasina was re-elected earlier this year, has been fueled by high youth unemployment. Nearly a fifth of the country’s 170 million population is out of work or education.
Protesters are demanding the state stop setting aside 30% of government jobs for the families of those who fought in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Hasina’s government had scrapped the quota system in 2018, but a high court reinstated it last month. The government appealed against the verdict, and the Supreme Court suspended the high court order, pending a hearing on the government’s appeal on August 7.
Source: Reuters
