DHAKA: Five Bangladeshi students accused of inciting campus unrest in August last year were released from jail on Wednesday as hundreds rallied at Dhaka University vowing to free other detainees, police said.

“The five students were arrested for torching a military vehicle. They were freed after the government dropped the charges against them,” local police chief Shahidul Islam said.

Nearly 500 students and teachers greeted and garlanded the students after they arrived at Dhaka University campus from jail and vowed to free three other still detained students, he added.

The move to release the students was an apparent effort at reconciliation by the military-backed government, which allowed President Iajuddin Ahmed to pardon three Dhaka University professors hours after they were sentenced to jail on Tuesday for two years for stoking violent campus demonstrations.

The August protests began at Dhaka University after students alleged soldiers attacked demonstrators and spread across the country, leaving at least one dead and more than 100 injured.

The government accused non-students of hijacking the demonstrations and imposed a week-long curfew.

It also arrested 14 academics and dozens of students from the Dhaka and Rajshahi universities in the west of the country on charges of inciting violence and breaking emergency laws during the unrest.

The emergency government came to power on Jan 12, 2007, following months of strikes and rioting by rival supporters of the country’s two main political parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League.

The government has promised to clean up the country’s notoriously corrupt political landscape before holding fresh elections in late 2008.—AFP