Just hours after Bangladesh’s prime minister resigned and fled the country on Monday, the country’s president announced he would dissolve parliament and form an interim government.
The announcement by Mohammed Shahabuddin, in a televised address to the nation, came at the end of a tumultuous day that saw former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resign and flee to India.
Weeks of violent student protests led to the fall of Hasina’s government on Monday, ending her 15-year tenure. About 300 people have been killed in the demonstrations.
Shahabuddin’s decision came after a meeting on Monday evening with opposition political leaders, who decided to release the former prime minister Khaleda Ziawho was jailed in 2018 in a corruption case. The meeting also decided to release all prisoners held during the anti-discrimination student movement.
Zaynal Abedin, the president’s spokesman, told state news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha that the meeting, which was attended by leaders of several opposition parties, unanimously decided to release Zia.
Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a political archrival of Hasina, was jailed for embezzling money meant for orphans. But she is living back home in Dhaka after the government released her on humanitarian grounds in 2022 and suspended her prison sentence.
Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi military said it would lift the curfew that was in place on Tuesday morning.
In a statement, the military said all government and private institutions will be open from 6 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Tuesday.
Army chief Waker-Uz-Zamanhe called on the protesting students to be patient and refrain from further violence.
“Justice will be served for all those murders and atrocities. Keep faith in the military,” he urged.
Two coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement said in a statement that power should be transferred to the interim government.
“We will not accept any other proposal,” said the statement, signed by Nahid Islam and Ashif Mahmud.
“The fascist murderers will be punished in the country; they will not be allowed to flee,” the report said, adding that all innocent civilians who were arrested and all political prisoners will be released.
Following the news of Hasina’s resignation, protesters set fire to the Awami League offices in Dhaka. Protesters, seen dancing and chanting slogans against Hasina, gathered on the campus of Dhaka University, the first site of protests against the controversial public quota system.
Thousands of protesters stormed the prime minister’s official residence, known as the Ganabhaban, in Dhaka after she left the country.
Online footage shows protesters looting items from the house, swimming in the pool and smoking cigarettes in the MPs’ chambers.
Authorities had already caved in to student demands to reform the unpopular quota system after protests in mid-July left more than 200 dead.
Since then, protesters have been demanding that the government grant justice to victims of police brutality, lift the curfew and reopen educational institutions.
This past weekend, the students continued to raise their demands and more violent confrontations took place, reportedly resulting in another hundred deaths, including fourteen police officers.
Hasina has been criticized for her authoritarian stance by political opponents and international rights groups, but her supporters call her the daughter of democracy.
Together with her younger sister Sheikh Rehana, she escaped a brutal military coup in 1975, in which her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of her family were killed.
When Hasina returned from exile in 1981, she took over the leadership of the Awami League party.
Under her leadership, the party played a crucial role in the ‘anti-autocratic’ movements against military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad in the 1980s.
In 1996, she became prime minister for the first time after her party won the parliamentary elections, marking the beginning of her leadership that would last five years.
Since then, her party has won several parliamentary elections, most recently in 2024. However, opposition groups have alleged electoral fraud.
