- Bangladesh PM resigns amid fatal protests
- Interim government to be formed urgently
- Nobel laureate Yunus urged to advise
Bangladesh’s parliament was dissolved one day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was removed from office.
Ms Hasina quit and fled the country after weeks of student-led protests descended into fatal violence.
Demonstrators’ fundamental demand for the dissolution of parliament opens the path for the formation of an interim government.
Bangladeshis are waiting to see what happens next as the country’s military head meets with political leaders and protest organisers.
According to local media, more than 100 people were killed in violent skirmishes across Bangladesh on Monday, making it the worst day since mass rallies began.
Hundreds of police stations were also set on fire, prompting the Bangladesh Police Service Association (BPSA) to declare a strike “until the security of every police officer is ensured.”
The group also attempted to shift blame on authorities, claiming that they were “forced to fire”.
Over 400 individuals are thought to have perished as a result of government troops’ violent repression of protesters.
The protests began in early July with nonviolent requests from university students to eliminate quotas in public service employment but quickly escalated into a more extensive anti-government campaign.
Weeks of protest culminated in the storming of the prime minister’s official house just after Ms Hasina left for nearby India, thus ending her nearly 15-year leadership.
Bangladeshi politicians are under pressure to form an interim government to avert a power vacuum that could spark additional conflict.
Within hours of her resignation, Bangladesh’s army leader, Gen Waker-uz-Zaman, promised that an interim administration would be constituted, saying on state television that “it is time to stop the violence”.
Student leaders have made it plain that they will not accept a military-led government, urging Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus to become the interim government’s senior adviser.
Mr Yunus, who consented to take on the post, said, “When the students who have given so much are asking me to step in at this critical time, how can I refuse?”
He is returning to Dhaka from Paris, where he is having a minor medical operation, according to his spokesperson.
Meanwhile, ex-prime minister and prominent opposition leader Khaleda Zia has been released after years under house detention, according to a presidential statement.
She leads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted elections in 2014 and again in 2024, claiming that free and fair elections were impossible under Ms Hasina.
The BNP wants the elections to be held under a neutral caretaker administration. This is now possible with the departure of Ms Hasina, who had previously rejected this proposal.
Ms Zia, 78, was Bangladesh’s prime minister from 1991 to 1996 before being imprisoned in 2018 on corruption accusations, which she claimed were politically motivated.
She was hardly the only opposition figure released after years of detention.
Ahmad Bin Quasem, an activist, was also released from custody, according to his lawyer Michael Polak.
According to rights groups, Mr Quasem was apprehended by security agents in 2016 as one of hundreds of forced disappearances in the country during Ms Hasina’s tenure.
“There were many points during his detention when he was thought to be dead, and the uncertainty was one of the many tools of repression used by the regime,” Mr Polak noted, adding that they hoped the decision to release political prisoners “is a positive sign of their intentions.”
“Unfortunately, the good news will not be shared by all,” he said, adding that other political prisoners had perished in captivity.
At least 20 more relatives of political prisoners gathered outside a military intelligence unit building in Dhaka earlier today, still desperate for news about their loved ones, according to the AFP news agency.
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“We need answers,” Sanjida Islam Tulee, a coordinator for the Mayer Daak (The Call of the Mothers) campaign, told the news agency.
Across the border in India, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said he was “deeply concerned until law and order is visibly restored” in Bangladesh. India shares a 4,096-kilometer (2,545-mile) border with Bangladesh and has extensive economic and cultural links with it.
He provided the first formal confirmation that Ms Hasina requested to fly to India on “concise notice” and “arrived yesterday evening in Delhi”.
India also sent more troops to the border with Bangladesh.
Mr Jaishankar further stated that our border guards have been urged to be extra vigilant in light of the problematic scenario at hand.
