Student protesters demanding reforms in the quota system in government jobs on Wednesday announced plans to enforce a complete nationwide shutdown on Thursday in response to the actions of the security forces that left at least six people, including four students, dead across the country.
A key coordinator of the movement, Asif Mahmud, in a Facebook post said all establishments, barring hospitals and emergency services, will remain closed, and only ambulance services will be permitted to operate.
The movement urges students from all educational institutions to participate and calls on guardians to support their cause, the newspaper reported.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in an address to the nation on Wednesday, “deeply regretted” the casualties in the violence over student protests and said that a judicial inquiry committee will be formed.
Hasina asked demonstrators to keep faith in the country’s apex court as the issue is pending with it.
“I believe our students will get justice (in the apex court). They will not be disappointed,” she said in an unscheduled nationwide address a day after six people were killed as the protest spread in major cities across the country on Tuesday and continued on Wednesday.
Donning a black saree, she appeared on a live TV broadcast coinciding with the Muslim mourning day of “Ashura”, which is a public holiday in Bangladesh, and said the casualties over the student protests were “very saddening and unfortunate” adding “for no justified reason some valuable lives were lost”.
She declared a judicial investigation into the killings and said, “I will do whatever support is necessary for the families of those who have been killed in the violence.”
“I declare unequivocally that action will be taken to ensure that those who have committed murder, looting and terrorist activities, whoever they may be, receive appropriate punishment,” the premier said.
Hasina, however, held responsible “some vested quarters” for instigating the violence saying the protesting students were not involved in the “terrorist acts” and urged them not to give chance to miscreants to take advantage of the situation.
The violence prompted the government to close all public and private universities alongside schools and colleges across Bangladesh for an indefinite period on late Tuesday asking residential students to leave dormitories.
According to media reports, four of the deceased were students and the remaining two were small traders. Two people were killed in the capital Dhaka, three in the southeastern port city of Chattogram and one in northwestern Rangpur.
A second-year student of northwestern Rangpur University was the first casualty on Tuesday when he was shot dead by police during a protest on the university campus.
