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Bangladesh unrest escalates: Protesters set jail on fire, free ‘hundreds’ of prisoners
At least 50 people have been killed in Bangladesh after police heightened a crackdown on student protests calling for reforms to public service hiring rules.
In a dramatic escalation of the student protests rocking Bangladesh, demonstrators stormed a jail in the central district of Narsingdi on Friday, freeing hundreds of inmates before setting the facility on fire.
According to a police officer, who spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity, "The inmates fled the jail and the protesters set the jail on fire." The officer estimated the number of escaped inmates to be in the hundreds.
Ripon, a local resident, witnessed at least 20 men leaving the jail with their belongings in handbags.
Read: Complete shutdown in Bangladesh as violent protests put PM Hasina in a spot of bother
The jailbreak occurred amid a violent crackdown on student protests that have swept across Bangladesh, resulting in at least 50 deaths this week. The protests, initially sparked by anger over government job quotas, have grown into a broader movement against the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, with some analysts suggesting that the violence is now also being driven by wider economic woes, such as high inflation, growing unemployment and shrinking reserves of foreign exchange.
Friday saw renewed clashes and further fatalities as three people were reported dead in fresh demonstrations. Authorities disrupted telecommunications, cutting mobile services to curb the unrest, though they denied any connection to a global cyber outage.
Read: MEA advisory for Indians as Bangladesh students quota protest kills 39 people
Tarique Rahman, the exiled acting chairman of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), voiced his support for the protesters on social media platform X, urging people to back the students and continue what he called a movement.
"I call upon all leaders, activists, and common people ... to stand by these tender-hearted students, provide them with all support, and carry this movement forward," Tarique Rahman posted on X.
With youth unemployment high and inflation soaring, the protests have tapped into widespread frustration.
The protests have opened old and sensitive political faultlines between those who fought for Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971 and those accused of collaborating with Islamabad.
The former include the Awami League party of Hasina, who branded the protesters "razakar", making use of a term that described independence-era collaborators.
With inputs from agencies
