DHAKA: Authorities in Bangladesh urged all universities to close on Wednesday after at least six people died in violent protests over the allocation of government jobs.
Some universities quickly moved to comply, but others, including Dhaka University at the center of the violence, were still deciding how to respond.
The University Grants Commission asked all public and private universities to suspend classes and empty their dormitories until further notice, to protect students. The country’s universities are run autonomously and the request did not have legal force.
Authorities said that at least six people were killed on Tuesday in violence across the country as student protesters clashed with pro-government student activists and with police, and violence was reported around the capital, Dhaka, the southeastern city of Chattogram and the northern city of Rangpur.
The protests began late last month, demanding an end to a quota that reserves 30% of government jobs for relatives of veterans of Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence, but turned violent on Monday as protesters clashed with counter-protests and police at Dhaka University, leaving 100 people injured.
Violence spread overnight to Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, and was reported elsewhere around the country on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, stray protests took place at Dhaka University and elsewhere in the country. Police were deployed on the campus, while paramilitary border forces patrolled the streets in Dhaka and other big cities.
The quota system was temporarily halted in 2018, following a court order that followed an earlier wave of mass student protests. But last month, Bangladesh’s High Court nullified that decision, angering students and triggering renewed protests.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and members of ethnic minorities, but protesters have only sought to end the quota for families of veterans.
Protesters argue the veterans' families quota is discriminatory, and argue it benefits supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement. Ruling party leaders accuse the opposition of backing the protests. Protesters have said they are apolitical.
Hasina defended the quota system Tuesday, saying that the veterans deserve the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political affiliation.
“Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had,” she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.