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Hundreds of protesting students and political activists armed with bamboo sticks, iron rods and pipes attacked supporters of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday in Bangladesh, blocking her people from marching to the former residence of her father, slain independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in the capital.
The house in Dhanmondi area of Dhaka is a museum that showcases the military coup of August 15, 1975, when Rahman and most of his family were killed. Hasina and her sister survived as they were in Germany at the time.
The house was later converted into the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum but was burnt down on August 5, hours after protests ousted Hasina from power and left more than 300 people dead in demonstrations across the country.
The unrest in the country began in July as a protest against a government job quota system. They later developed into a movement against Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian government. Ultimately, the uprising forced the prime minister to abdicate and flee to India, ending her 15-year rule.
The former prime minister is in self-imposed exile in India, where she called on people to mark the anniversary of her father’s death yesterday. During her rule, August 15 was a public holiday and observed as a national day of mourning, a day that was overturned by the new interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.
Hasina’s supporters who tried to reach the museum complained that during the clashes, protesters abused them and even checked the mobile phones and ID cards of participants. They also threatened journalists who were filming the event at the scene.
Sarjis Alam, the main organiser of the student protests, told a rally in Dhaka’s Shahbagh area yesterday that demonstrators would continue to demand Hasina’s trial.
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