Why have thousands of students taken to the streets in protest in Bangladesh?

Bangladesh is on the boil after 38 people, mostly students, died this week during violent anti-reservation protests across the country.

Hundreds and thousands of students have taken to the streets demanding an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30 per cent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971 against Pakistan.

The students alleged the protests were peaceful until earlier this week, when the student wing of the ruling Awami League party attacked the protesters. Hundreds of people, including the police, have suffered injuries since.

Police and security officials fired bullets and tear gas at protesters in Bangladesh on Friday as the authorities cut off internet and mobile services following deadly clashes in the capital Dhaka and other major cities.

The fresh clashes follow the bloodiest day of the protests to date, which led to the death of 22 people, mostly undergraduate students, as protesters attempted to impose a "complete shutdown" in the country.

At least two journalists were among those killed during the violence. "I am shot at but will continue my work after dressing at hospital," wrote journalist Muktadir Rashid on X.

The protesters have called on the government to abolish the quota for being “discriminatory” against the students.

Under the quota system, government jobs are also reserved for women, disabled people and members of ethnic minorities, but students have mainly protested against jobs reserved for veterans’ families, which they claim benefits mostly supporters of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement.

The policy has angered students suffering from high unemployment in a country where some 32 million young people are not in work or education. Even though job opportunities have grown in some parts of the private sector, many people prefer government jobs because they are seen as more stable and lucrative.

“We have to look out for ourselves and our future generations. We need jobs in this country, we are already suffering from the lack of it,” said Alam Rashid, a student from Dhaka. “We have invited the government to have a conversation with us multiple times, instead she [Sheikh Hasina] just unleashed her police force on us,” he told The Independent .

Ms Hasina’s government had halted the job quotas following mass student protests in 2018, but last month, the High Court nullified that decision and reinstated the quotas after relatives of the 1971 veterans filed petitions.

The Supreme Court suspended that ruling pending an appeal hearing. The court will take up the matter on Sunday.

Ms Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the man who led Bangladesh to independence. She has defended the quota system, saying that veterans deserve the highest respect for their contributions in the war regardless of their political affiliation.

She previously labelled those opposing the quota system as “ razakar “, or volunteer, a term used for those who allegedly collaborated with the Pakistani army during the 1971 war.

Ms Hasina "was forced" to call in the army to "maintain order" as paramilitary and police failed to curtail the violence, according to reports. Rights groups have accused the police of using brute force against the protesters after bullet injuries were found on the body of a 25-year-old university student this week.

Most television news channels in Bangladesh were off the air on Friday after thousands of protesters stormed the headquarters of the state broadcaster BTV, vandalised furniture, smashed windows, and set fire to parts of the building.

Backed by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the students have refused to back down.

“We were protesting peacefully until we were attacked by the goons. It is our right to continue protesting, it is embedded in the history of this country and we shall continue to do so for our right," a Dhaka university student who did not want to be named for fear of persecution told The Independent .

The Awami League and the BNP have often accused each other of fueling political chaos and violence, most recently ahead of the country's national election, which was marred by a crackdown on several opposition figures while Hasina's government accused the party of attempting to disrupt the vote.

Ms Hasina on Wednesday urged protesters in a televised address to "wait with patience" for the court verdict. "I believe our students will get justice from the apex court. They will not be disappointed."

Her law minister, Anisul Huq, said the government was willing to talk to the protesters "whenever they want to sit in the discussion, it will happen".

Earlier in the week the government suspended university classes indefinitely and asked students to vacate the dorms immediately.

"What is unfolding in Bangladesh is deeply unsettling for a generation that only asked for a fair opportunity in public service recruitment. That a peaceful protest against a state policy would slip into the peak of lawlessness shows the government's lack of farsightedness and inefficient policy governance," said Saad Hammadi, policy and advocacy manager at the Canada-based Balsillie School of International Affairs.

"The internet shutdown makes matters worse. Local news sites are inaccessible, and people in the country are left incommunicado with the rest of the world all in the pretext of conducting sweeping operations by the state that have often resulted in serious human rights violations," he told the Associated Press.

The streets of Dhaka were deserted on Friday with little traffic and very few rickshaw pullers on the roads and thin crowds near a vegetable and fish market.

The official websites of the Bangladesh central bank, the prime minister’s office, and the police appeared to have been hacked by a group calling itself “THE R3SISTANC3”.

“Operation HuntDown, Stop Killing Students,” it said in identical messages on both sites, adding in bright red font: “It’s not a protest anymore, it’s a war now.”

The US and the UN have raised concerns about the ongoing protests and called for “restraint from all sides”.

India, one of Bangladesh’s strongest allies, issued an advisory on Thursday for its residents living in the embattled country. The embassy asked Indian citizens to “avoid local travel and minimise their movement outside their living premises”.

The Independent has reached out to India’s home ministry for a comment.

Additional inputs by agencies