The student group leading this month’s protests has suspended demonstrations until at least Friday.
Dhaka, Bangladesh:
Garment factories and banks reopened in Bangladesh on Wednesday after authorities eased a curfew imposed to contain deadly clashes sparked by student protests over employment quotas for civil servants.
At least 186 people were killed in last week’s violence in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s term, according to an AFP casualty count reported by police and hospitals.
Thousands of troops are patrolling cities in the South Asian country to maintain order, and most Bangladeshis are still without internet almost a week after a nationwide lockdown was imposed.
But as calm returned to the streets after several days of unbridled chaos, the country’s economically vital textile factories resumed operations after government approval.
“We were worried about the future of our company,” 40-year-old factory worker Khatun, who gave only one name, told AFP.
Despite the disruption, Khatun said she supported student protesters’ demands for reform of government hiring rules and was shocked by last week’s violence.
“The government must implement all their demands,” she said. ‘Many of them have been murdered. They have made sacrifices for future generations.”
The garment industry generates $50 billion in export revenue for Bangladesh annually and employs millions of young women to sew clothes for H&M, Zara, Gap and other leading international brands.
A spokesperson for the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association told AFP that garment factories had resumed operations “across the country”.
Hasina’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan agreed to exempt garment workers from an ongoing curfew so they can return to work, the top body’s spokesman said.
The curfew was relaxed on Wednesday to allow some trading to resume, but remains in place for 19 hours a day for most Bangladeshis.
Banks, the stock exchange in the capital Dhaka and some government offices are also open between 10am and 3pm to match the daily break in the stay-at-home order, government spokesman Shibli Sadiq told AFP.
‘So much blood’
The student group leading this month’s protests suspended demonstrations until at least Friday, with one leader saying they did not want reforms “at the cost of so much blood.”
Police have arrested at least 2,500 people since the violence began last week.
Hasina’s government says the stay-at-home order will be further relaxed as the situation improves.
Broadband internet was gradually restored on Tuesday evening, but mobile internet – a key communication method for protest organizers – remained out of service.
Internet connectivity in Bangladesh was still around 20 percent of normal levels, according to data published by US monitor Netblocks.
With around 18 million youth unemployed in Bangladesh, the reintroduction of the quota scheme in June, which has been halted since 2018, according to government figures, has deeply upset graduates facing an acute job crisis.
Critics say the quota is being used to stack public jobs with loyalists from Hasina’s Awami League.
The Supreme Court on Sunday reduced the number of reserved jobs, but did not meet protesters’ demands to completely abolish the quota.
Hasina, 76, has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth straight election in January in a vote without real opposition.
Her government is also accused by rights groups of abusing state institutions to tighten its grip on power and stamp out dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)