Protests in Bangladesh turns uncontrollable, TV station set ablaze

Dhaka: At least 32 people have been killed in Bangladesh in escalating clashes during protests by students who overwhelmed police on Thursday setting fire to the country’s state broadcaster, BTV.

Hundreds of students flooded the streets, demanding reform in civil service selection rules, and fought with riot police, News agency AFP reported.

Police tried to stop the protesters by firing rubber bullets but eventually got themselves chased to the TV station headquarters in the capital Dhaka.

Protesters set ablaze the station’s reception building and several vehicles parked outside.

Only a day before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appeared on the network appealing for calm as the violence went out of hand.

The broadcaster in a Facebook past said ‘many people’ were trapped inside; news agency AFP quoted an official as saying ‘The fire is still going on,’ adding ‘We have come out to the main gate. Our broadcast has been shut down for now.’

Hasina administration shut down schools and universities indefinitely to control the violence, and she appeared on the TV Wednesday night condemning the ‘murder’ of protesters and promised action.

Her appeal seemed to have little impact on the violence with police having to use rubber bullets and tear gas volleys to disperse crowds.

AFP quoted one protester Bidisha Rimjhim, 18, as saying: "Our first demand is that the prime minister must apologise to us."

"Secondly, justice must be ensured for our killed brothers," she said.

At least 25 people were killed on Thursday plus seven killed earlier in the week alongside hundreds more wounded in the violence.

Police action is found to be the ‘cause of at least two-thirds deaths’ with an official at Uttara Crescent Hospital in Dhaka saying ‘We've got seven dead here,’ adding ‘The first two were students with rubber bullet injuries. The other five had gunshot injuries.’

Protesters have been demanding over the month to end a quota system reserving more than half of the civil service posts to some groups including ‘children of veterans from the country's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.’

It is alleged the scheme benefits children of the pro-government groups backing Hasina.

Rights group accused Hasina, who returned to power for the fourth consecutive term, of capturing state institutions, according to the report.

AFP quoted Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo in Norway, as saying that the protest is against the ‘repressive nature of the state’.