Protesters attack Bangladeshi state broadcaster after PM’s call for calm | Bangladesh

Bangladeshi students have set fire to the state broadcaster’s building a day after the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, appeared on the network seeking to calm escalating clashes that had killed at least 39 people.

Hundreds of protesters demanding reform of civil service hiring rules clashed with riot police who had shot at them with rubber bullets on Thursday, chasing the retreating officers to BTV’s headquarters in the capital, Dhaka.

The incensed crowd then set ablaze the network’s reception building and dozens of vehicles parked outside, a BTV official told AFP.

The broadcaster said “many people” were trapped inside as the fire spread. Another official from the station later told AFP they had safely evacuated the building.

The government of Hasina, 76, has ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police step up efforts to bring a deteriorating law and order situation under control.

The premier appeared on the broadcaster’s station on Wednesday night to condemn the “murder” of protesters and vow that those found responsible would be punished regardless of their political affiliation. But violence worsened on the streets despite her appeal for calm as police again attempted to break up demonstrations with rubber bullets and teargas volleys.

At least 32 people were killed on Thursday in addition to seven killed earlier in the week, according to a tally of casualty figures from hospitals compiled by AFP. Hundreds more people were wounded. Police weaponry was the cause of at least two-thirds of those deaths, based on descriptions given to AFP.

“We’ve got seven dead here,” said an official at Uttara Crescent hospital in Dhaka, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. “The first two were students with rubber bullet injuries. The other five had gunshot injuries.”

Nearly 1,000 others had been treated at the hospital for injuries sustained during clashes with police, the official said, adding that many of those people had rubber bullet wounds.

Didar Malekin, of the online news outlet Dhaka Times, said one of his reporters, Mehedi Hasan, had been killed while covering clashes in Dhaka.

There was violence in several cities across Bangladesh throughout the day as riot police marched on protesters, who had begun another round of human blockades on roads and highways.

Helicopters rescued 60 police officers trapped on the roof of a campus building at Canadian University, the scene of some of Dhaka’s fiercest clashes on Thursday, the elite Rapid Action Battalion police force said.

Almost every day this month, people on marches have demanded an end to the quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, who has ruled the country since 2009. She won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition. Her administration is accused by rights groups of capturing state institutions and stamping out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladesh expert at the University of Oslo, said the protests had grown into a wider expression of discontent with Hasina’s autocratic rule. “They are protesting against the repressive nature of the state. Protesters are questioning Hasina’s leadership, accusing her of clinging on to power by force. The students are in fact calling her a dictator,” Hasan said.

Bangladeshis reported widespread mobile internet outages around the country on Thursday, two days after internet providers cut off access to Facebook, the protest campaign’s key organising platform.

The telecommunications minister, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, said the government had ordered the network to be cut off. He earlier said social media had been “weaponised as a tool to spread rumours, lies and disinformation”, forcing the government to restrict access.

Along with police crackdowns, demonstrators and students allied to the premier’s ruling Awami League party have also battled each other on the streets with bricks and bamboo rods.