Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin will appoint Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus as head of the country’s interim government, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and flee to India following mass protests.
A presidential spokesman told dpa by telephone that the decision to appoint 84-year-old Yunus was taken at a meeting attended by the president, senior military officers, members of civil society and representatives of student protest organizers.
The remaining members of the interim government will be chosen after consultation with the political parties, he said.
The president had earlier dissolved parliament after weeks of violent protests that left nearly 400 people dead, prompting Hasina to resign and flee Bangladesh on Monday.
The demonstrations culminated the same day with the storming of a government palace. Local media reported that more than 100 people had been killed in widespread violence across the country.
The situation on the streets of the capital Dhaka was calm on Tuesday morning after the curfew imposed by Hasina’s government was lifted.
Parliament dissolved in consultation with army and protesters
Hasina stepped down on Monday after 15 years in power. Her Awami League party won a large majority in elections in January but is expected to be ousted after President Shahabuddin dissolved parliament.
“The decision to dissolve parliament was taken after the president held talks with the chiefs of three staffs of the armed forces, leaders of several political parties, representatives of civil society and leaders of the anti-discrimination student movement,” the presidential office said in a press release.
Hasina’s capitulation follows weeks of protests organised by the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, which began in early July and initially demanded an end to the government’s controversial quota system.
The demonstrations spread across the country and turned violent in mid-July as Hasina tried to cling to power.
Protest organizers choose 2006 Nobel Prize winner
Earlier on Tuesday, Nahid Islam, one of the main coordinators of the protests, said in a video message on Facebook that Yunus had agreed to the role of interim leader.
“He has given his consent considering the current situation in the country,” Nahid said, adding that the names of other members of the interim government would be made public later in the day.
Yunus, a social entrepreneur, banker and economist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering role in microcredit and microfinance.
Key Hasina Zia’s opponent released from house arrest
The presidential statement also said that the former prime minister Khaleda Ziachairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Hasina’s main political rival, was released from house arrest.
Zia was convicted of corruption in 2018 and has been living in her home in Dhaka since she was conditionally released from prison in 2022 on humanitarian grounds, after the government suspended her prison sentence.
The statement also said that the process of releasing political prisoners, including those arrested during the student movement against discrimination, has begun.
Mass violence, deaths after Hasina‘s exit
More than 100 people were killed and scores more injured in violence that erupted across the country after Hasina stepped down, local media reported on Tuesday.
Most of the deaths occurred when protesters attacked police stations, public buildings and the homes and businesses of Hasina supporters, the reports said.
The Bangladeshi daily Prothom Alo reported that some 109 people were killed in Monday’s vandalism. The newspaper put the death toll at 440 since July 16, when violence flared during anti-government protests.
The death toll could not be independently verified by the dpa.
Firefighters have recovered the bodies of 24 people from a hotel owned by a local Awami League leader in the southwestern city of Jessore after a fire broke out, an official said.
In another arson attack, firefighters found the charred bodies of four people in a six-storey building owned by an Awami League party leader in the southwestern Chuadanga district after protesters set fire to the building, Bangla daily Prothom Alo reported.
In the southern district of Chandpur, a low-ranking local government official loyal to the Awami League was lynched by a mob. His son was also lynched as they tried to flee, the newspaper reported.
About 518 prisoners fled after a mob opened a prison in the northern Sherpur district in the afternoon, said Abdullah Al Khairum, the district’s chief administrator, adding that the mob looted weapons, ammunition and other valuables from the prison on Monday, shortly after news broke that Hasina had stepped down.
Most police stations in Dhaka remained empty on Tuesday as officers were sent back to barracks over security concerns, a police official in the Dhaka metropolis said on condition of anonymity.
Offices and schools were opened when the curfew was lifted on Tuesday morning, but attendance was very low. Traffic in Dhaka was thin with three-wheeler rickshaws dominating the streets.
