Violent clashes over government jobs quota system leave scores injured in Bangladesh

DHAKA, Banglades -- Police fired tear gas and charged with batons during violent clashes between a pro-government student body and student protesters overnight, leaving dozens injured at a public university outside Bangladesh’s capital, authorities and students said Tuesday.

The violence spread early Tuesday at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, where protesters demanded an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971, allowing them to take up 30% of governmental jobs. While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh’s private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.

Protesters argue such quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some even said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.

Protesters gathered in front of the university’s official residence of the vice-chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina’s ruling Awami League party, of attacking their “peaceful protests.” According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.

But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country’s leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and “blank rounds” as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.

More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.

On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country’s leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said. The protesters in Dhaka said they planned on demonstrating on Tuesday as well.

The family of the veterans’ quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh’s High Court nulled the decision to reinstall the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.

Last week, the Supreme Court halted the High Court’s order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks. Meanwhile, the prime minister said the matter was in the hands of the Supreme Court now.

But the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.

The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have only protested against jobs reserved for veterans' families.

Prime Minister Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country’s main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina’s refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.

Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.

In 1971, the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which shared power with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Hasina’s archrival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in 2001-2006, openly opposed the independence war and formed groups that helped the Pakistani military fight pro-independence forces. All the major political parties in Bangladesh have student wings that are active across the South Asian nation.