Bangladesh protesters propose Yunus to lead interim government

The protest organizers have proposed Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus as the head of an interim government to be formed after Bangladesh's prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India following weeks of violent protests.

Nahid Islam, one of the top coordinators of the protests, said in a video message posted on Facebook early on Tuesday that the 84-year-old Nobel laureate had agreed to take on the role.

"He has given consent considering the present situation of the country as we communicated him," Nahid said adding the names of the other members of the interim administration would be made public later in the day.

Yunus, a social entrepreneur, banker and economist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance.

Weeks of violent student protests led to the toppling of Hasina's government on Monday, marking a tumultuous end to her 15-year tenure. Around 300 people have been killed in the demonstrations.

Both celebrations and widespread violence were reported across Bangladesh following the resignation.

The protesters said Hasina was an autocrat who used excessive force to quell the demonstrations, which began in early July.

The demonstrations against Hasina's government began early last month after a High Court bench reinstated a controversial government job quota system, which was abolished in 2018.

The protests turned violent nationwide in mid-July, and some 200 people were killed in clashes between the police and protesters, prompting the government to deploy army troops and impose curfew before the quota system reforms were made public on July 23.

Last month's protests seemed to have calmed down somewhat but flared up again on Friday to demand justice for the victims of the killings.

Hasina removed Yunus from the post of managing director of Grameen Bank after he lost an age-discrimination lawsuit in 2011 in a dispute over the age of retirement. He has faced a number of corruption allegations and was put on trial during Hasina's rule.

Yunus, who briefly set up his own rival political party in 2007, was accused of using "tricks" to avoid taxes and "sucking blood from the poor." The bank lends small sums to poor individuals who have no access to credit from traditional banks.