DHAKA: A Bangladeshi student group on Sunday vowed to resume protests that sparked a lethal police crackdown and unrest unless their leaders were released.

Last week’s violence killed at least 205 people, including several police, according to an AFP count of police and hospital data, in one of the biggest upheavals of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year tenure.

Army patrols and a nationwide curfew remain in place more than a week after they were imposed, and a police dragnet has scooped up thousands of protesters including half a dozen student leaders.

Members of Students Aga­inst Discrimination (SAD), whose campaign against civil service job quotas precipitated the unrest, said they would end their weeklong protest moratorium.

Demand ‘visible’ actions against ministers, officers responsible for protesters’ deaths

The group’s chief Nahid Islam and others “should be freed and the cases against them must be withdrawn”, Abdul Hannan Masud told reporters in an online briefing late Saturday.

Masud also demanded “visible actions” be taken against ministers and police officers responsible for the deaths of protesters.

“Otherwise, Students Against Discrimination will be forced to launch tough protests” from Monday, he said.

Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were forcibly discharged from hospital in Dhaka on Friday and taken away by plainclothes detectives.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2024