Bangladesh: Hasina Meets With Families Of The Dead As Arrests Continue

Bangladesh's home minister announced Sunday that 147 people had been killed in civil unrest that rocked Bangladesh in mid-July, as the prime minister attempted to comfort relatives of the dead at her official residence in Dhaka.

It was the first time Bangladeshi authorities released a death toll for thecrisis, the country’sworst civil unrestin over a decade and a major challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed's 15-year hold on power.

BenarNews reporters have confirmed 212 deaths, based on various sources, including hospitals and police. Hospital wards and morgues are full of gunshot victims.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said authorities were still investigating the deaths, and the count might be updated.

“So far, we have preliminary reports of 147 deaths,” he told a press conference. “Thedeadinclude students, policemen, and people from various professions.”

Bangladesh has been hit by itsdeadliest unrestin more than a decade as student protests against a discriminatory quota system for government jobs escalated into clashes with pro-government groups and security forces. The military is now deployed in the streets and partial curfews are in force.

Some 9,000 people have been detained across the country, most of them opposition leaders-workers and general students, according to police and local media.

On Sunday, at her official residence in Dhaka, Hasina met with the families of 34 people killed during theunrest.

The families included that ofAbu Sayed, a student shot dead by police officers in the northwestern city of Rangpur on July 16.

The killing of 25-year-old, unarmed Sayed was caught on video and sparked public outrage.

“My effort will be to find those involved in [these killings], and [the] killers must be punished,” Hasina told the gathering.

Hasina said the deaths in the unrest reminded her of the assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s first president, and the killing of her family members in August 1975.

“I understand your pain, it's my misery that I have to see your tears,” Hasina said.

For some, Hasina’s performance as comforter-in-chief rang hollow.

“The government is arresting and torturing quota reform activists even after giving a commitment that the students would not be harassed. But, not a single law enforcer and those who openly killed students by shooting have been arrested yet,” Bangladesh Nationalist Party Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said in a statement Sunday.

Bangladeshis meanwhile began regainingmobile connectivityon their phones, more than a week after the Bangladesh government shut down the internet to quell the unrest. However, major social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok remained blocked for most people.

Junaid Ahmed Palak, the minister of state for posts, telecommunications and information technology, announced the restoration of mobile networks early Sunday, but said major social media apps would remain blocked until company representatives explained why violent content had not been removed.

He said representatives of Meta (the parent company of Facebook) and TikTok had been summoned to his office on July 31 to explain this.

However, senior police officials, government ministers and student activists were posting on Facebook and other platforms on Sunday.

Late Sunday, Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s detective branch chief Harun-or-Rashid posted photographs of six lead organizers of the student protests, all of whom have been detained, eating dinner in his office.

“Coordinators of the Students Movement Against Discrimination were suffering from insecurity. So we brought them to the Detective Branch office and talked to them,” the Facebook post said. “After listening to them and informing them about our various plans for the safety of the students, their concerns were relieved.”

Minutes after the post came online, journalists received a statement asserting that student protesters had canceled planned programs, because their main demands had been met. But several prominent student activists rejected this.

“The student community would not accept the statement made under gunpoint,” Abdul Hannan Masud said.