Hasina abandons Bangladesh as chaos engulfs nation, Army takes charge
New Delhi/Dhaka: In a dramatic turn of events that has sent shockwaves through South Asia, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina secretly fled the country on Monday, leaving behind a nation in turmoil. As news of her departure spread, the military swiftly moved to fill the power vacuum.
Army Chief General Waqar-uz-Zaman announced on national television that the 76-year-old prime minister had resigned and that an interim government would be taking over.
“I’m taking all responsibility (of the country). Please cooperate,” Zaman stated, effectively signalling the end of Hasina’s 15-year rule.
The crisis reached a boiling point after weeks of escalating tensions and violent protests against Hasina’s government. At the heart of the unrest was a controversial quota system that reserved 30 per cent of government jobs for families of veterans who fought in the 1971 liberation war. The policy had sparked widespread anger and accusations of nepotism and unfairness. Student activists had called for a march to the capital Dhaka on Monday in defiance of a nationwide curfew to press Hasina to resign after clashes across the country on Sunday killed nearly 100 people. On Monday, at least six people were killed in clashes between police and protesters in the Jatrabari and Dhaka Medical College areas.
Meanwhile, the Army chief also revealed that he had met with political leaders to discuss the transition, though representatives from Hasina’s Awami League party were notably absent.
The Army chief said he had asked both Army and police not to fire any shots. Zaman also urged restraint and asked protesters to end the violence. He vowed “justice” for all the people.
Hasina’s son and former official adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy asserted that she left the country for her own safety on her family’s insistence. In an interview to Newshour on the BBC World Service, Joy said there would be no political comeback for his mother and she had been considering resigning since Sunday.
As word of Hasina’s flight spread, chaotic scenes unfolded across the capital, Dhaka, and other major cities. Protesters, emboldened by the sudden power shift, broke into the prime minister’s residence, ‘Ganabhaban’, vandalising and looting its contents.
With volatile crowds taking to the streets—some clambed on Hasina’s father and Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s statue and smashed it with hammers.
After hours of uncertainty in a day of sudden developments, Hasina landed at the Hindon airbase in Ghaziabad near New Delhi on her way to London, diplomatic sources in the Indian capital said. She arrived in India in a C-130J military transport aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force. She is likely to meet her daughter Saima Wazed, who is based in Delhi and working as the WHO’s regional director for South-East Asia.
Back home in Dhaka, restive crowds, their protests giving way to jubilation that the Hasina rule had ended, swarmed the airport and even spilled into the runway. The Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in the city’s Dhanmondi area was damaged. Four Hindu temples suffered “minor” damages across the country, eyewitnesses and a community leader said.
The Bangabandhu Memorial Museum—dedicated to Mujibur Rahman who was assassinated along with his wife and their three sons while serving as president in 1975—was also vandalised. Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana had survived the purge as they were abroad. Hasina then spent six years in exile in India.
The home of Dr Wajed Miah, Hasina’s husband, was not spared either in the vortex of violence on Monday, local reports said. From Ganabhaban, the prime minister’s official residence, came extraordinary visuals of protesters storming in and walking away with sofas and even chairs.
A man held aloft his child, hundreds broke in to the beating of drums, and one protester proudly proclaimed to the media that he had taken a red lipstick. “I will keep it as a memento of our struggle… to remember we broke free from a dictator. She used to wear this lipstick,” he said. Another young man carrying a planter said, “This is freedom. I can’t put this feeling into words.”
The Bangladesh flag draped around his neck, a protester said he was 35 years old and had not been able to cast his vote for three elections.
With crowds on a fiery rampage through the country—a charred vehicle on a Dhaka street testimony to the violence—the Awami League office in the capital was set on fire. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan’s house was ransacked. A Prothom Alo reporter said screams and loud noises could be heard when several people entered the chief justice’s residence.
The violence was not restricted to Dhaka. In the eastern city of Sylhet, offices of the deputy commissioner and superintendent of police were reportedly set on fire, while the homes of several councillors were attacked, BBC reported.
Hasina has been ruling the strategically located South Asian nation since 2009. She was elected for a record fourth consecutive term and fifth overall term in the 12th general election held in January, amid a boycott by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former premier Khaleda Zia and its allies.
Trouble had been steadily escalating since the government’s announcement of the quota system in June this year.
The clashes between protesters demanding Hasina’s resignation and the ruling Awami League supporters in different parts of Bangladesh on Sunday erupted days after more than 200 people were killed in violent clashes between police and mostly student protesters. At least 300 people have been killed within a fortnight.
Earlier in the day, the government ordered a complete internet shutdown as protestors asked the general public to join a “Long March to Dhaka.” However, a government agency gave a verbal order to start broadband internet around 1.15 pm on Monday.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk asked the country’s political leadership and the security forces to abide by their obligations to protect the right to life and the freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. with agency inputs
