Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled her palace on Monday, a source told AFP news agency. masses of demonstrators demanding her resignation were roaming the streets of Dhaka and the army chief was due to address the nation. Local television channel Channel 24 showed footage of crowds rushing into the prime minister’s residence in the capital.
CBS News affiliate BBC News reported that Hasina had resigned as Bangladesh’s prime minister and left the country. A source close to the beleaguered leader said she had left her palace in the capital for a “safer place.”
Jubilant crowds waved flags and celebrated peacefully. Some danced on tanks.
Hasina’s son urged the country’s security forces to block any possible takeover of her power, while a senior adviser told AFP her resignation was a “possibility” after being asked if she would step down.
“She wanted to record a speech but she was not given the opportunity,” the source close to Hasina told AFP.
Bangladesh army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman will address the nation on Monday afternoon, a military spokesman told AFP, without giving further details.
According to an official statement, Waker told officers on Saturday that the military “has always stood with the people.”
What caused the protests in Bangladesh?
The protests that began last month over civil service quotas have grown into the worst unrest in Hasina’s 15-year rule and led to wider calls for the 76-year-old prime minister to step down.
Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January, after an unopposed vote.
Human rights groups accuse her government of abusing state institutions to consolidate its power and suppress dissent, including through the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Protests erupted against the reintroduction of a quota system, which reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.
The protests have escalated despite the plan being scaled back by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court.
“It is your duty to keep our people and our country safe and uphold the Constitution,” her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, who lives in the US, wrote in a Facebook post.
“It means that you must not allow any unelected government to come to power, not even for one minute. That is your duty.”
But protesters defied security forces who imposed a curfew and marched through the streets of the capital on Monday after the deadliest day of unrest since demonstrations broke out last month.
On Monday, internet access was severely restricted, offices were closed and more than 3,500 factories serving Bangladesh’s economically vital garment industry were shuttered.
Soldiers and police with armoured vehicles in Dhaka had cordoned off routes to Hasina’s office with barbed wire, AFP reporters reported, but large crowds of people poured into the streets and destroyed the barriers.
According to local newspaper Business Standard, there were about 400,000 protesters on the streets.
“It is time for the final protest,” said Asif Mahmud, one of the main leaders of the nationwide civil disobedience campaign.
“An unprecedented popular uprising in every respect”
At least 94 people were killed on Sunday, including 14 police officers.
Protesters and government supporters across the country clashed with sticks and knives as security forces opened fire.
The violence that day brought the total number of deaths since protests began in early July The number of victims has risen to at least 300, according to an AFP tally based on data from police, government officials and hospital doctors.
“The shocking violence in Bangladesh must stop,” Volker Turk, head of the United Nations human rights body, said in a statement.
“This is an unprecedented popular uprising in every sense,” said Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University and an expert on Bangladesh. “Moreover, the brutality of the state actors and regime loyalists is unparalleled in history.”
Videos on social media verified by AFP showed protesters in Dhaka on Sunday climbing on a statue of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence leader, and smashing it with hammers.
In several cases, soldiers and police officers failed to intervene to stop the protests on Sunday, unlike protests over the past month, which have repeatedly ended in deadly crackdowns.
“Let’s be clear: the walls around Hasina are closing in on her: she is rapidly losing support and legitimacy,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, told AFP.
“The protests have gained enormous momentum, fueled by sheer anger, but also by the confidence that comes from knowing that a large part of the country is behind them,” he said.
In a symbolic rebuke to Hasina, a former respected army chief demanded the government withdraw troops “immediately” and allow protests.
“Those responsible for putting the people of this country in such extreme misery must be brought to justice,” former army chief General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan told reporters on Sunday.
The anti-government movement draws people from across society in the South Asian country of about 170 million people, including movie stars, musicians and singers.
