Bangladeshi students suspend protests amid curfew

More than 160 people have been killed in nationwide unrest over a job quota scheme

Thousands of students have joined protests in Bangladesh. The authorities have arrested more than 500 people over the violence. AP

Bangladeshi students suspended protests on Monday, a day after the Supreme Court scrapped parts of a job quota scheme amid street violence that killed at least 163 people.

The Students Against Discrimination group, the main organiser of the protests, called off demonstrations for 48 hours, AFP reported.

The group demanded Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government end a curfew and restore the internet access in the country. Communications and Wi-Fi were cut as violence raged in cities including the capital Dhaka.

The government has kept the nation of 172 million people under a curfew for a fourth day, with soldiers patrolling the streets and given shoot-on-sight orders. More than 500 people, including some opposition leaders, have been arrested over the violence, Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain said.

"We are suspending the shutdown protests for 48 hours," Students Against Discrimination leader Nahid Islam told AFP.

He is receiving treatment after he was beaten by people he accused of being undercover police, he said.

"We demand that during this period the government withdraws the curfew, restores the internet and stops targeting the student protesters,” he added. "But we did not want quota reform at the expense of so much blood, so much killing, so much damage to life and property."

Thousands of students took to the streets after the country’s high court reinstated a government job quota system first brought in 1972 by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, former president of Bangladesh and father of the current Prime Minister.

Under the quota system, reinstated last month by the High Court, 30 per cent of highly sought-after government jobs were to go to children of veterans of the country’s war of independence in 1971.

The Supreme Court said on Sunday that the High Court ruling was illegal.

The Supreme Court ruled that 93 per cent of jobs will be now filled on merit, with seven per cent set aside for specific categories, including five per cent for the children of the independence fighters.

Sporadic violence continued on Monday, with four people treated for gunshot wounds at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Police officers are among those who have been killed in the unrest.

Diplomats in Dhaka criticised the authorities' response to the protests. Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud summoned ambassadors for a briefing on Sunday and showed them a 15-minute video that focused on damage caused by protesters, AFP reported.

US ambassador Peter Haas told Mr Mahmud that he was presenting a one-sided version of events, a senior diplomatic official said.

The US embassy in Dhaka on Sunday described the situation as “extremely volatile” and “unpredictable". It added that guns and tear gas have been used near the embassy.

American citizens in Bangladesh have been urged to be vigilant and avoid large crowds.

Bangladesh is a major contributor to UN peacekeeping operations around the world, earning significant revenue from its efforts, and has UN-marked equipment in its military inventories.

Experts have blamed the unrest on stagnant job growth in the private sector and high rates of youth unemployment that have made government jobs, which promise regular wage increases and other privileges, more attractive.

Ms Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009, won her fifth consecutive term in January. She has been largely credited with turning the country’s economy around and has taken steps to tackle poverty, but critics accuse her of suppressing dissent.

Bangladesh has reported economic growth at an average of 6.25 per cent annually over the past two decades, but official figures show about 40 per cent of young people do not have a job or are enrolled at university.