Bangladesh soldiers patrolled the deserted streets of the capital Dhaka, Saturday, and set up roadblocks during a curfew meant to quell deadly student-led protests against government job quotas, that have killed at least 110 people this week.
Internet and text message services have been suspended since Thursday, cutting the South Asian nation off from the rest of the world as police cracked down on protests that have continued despite a ban on public gatherings.
Overseas telephone calls mostly failed to connect while websites of Bangladesh-based media organisations did not update, and their social media handles remained inactive.
“To take a country of nearly 170 million people off the Internet is a drastic step, one we haven’t seen the likes of since the Egyptian revolution of 2011,” said John Heidemann, chief scientist of the networking and cybersecurity division at USC Viterbi’s Information Sciences Institute.
In addition to the deaths, the clashes have injured thousands, according to data from hospitals across Bangladesh. The Dhaka Medical College Hospital received 27 dead bodies between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Friday.
For five days police have fired tear gas and hurled sound grenades to scatter protesters as demonstrators clashed with security personnel, throwing bricks and igniting 토토 vehicles.
The demonstrations — the biggest since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was reelected for a fourth successive term this year — have also been fueled by high unemployment among young people, who make up nearly a fifth of the South Asian nation’s 170 million people.
With the death toll climbing and police and other security forces unable to contain the protests, Hasina’s government imposed a national curfew and deployed the military.
The curfew was eased for two hours from noon Saturday to allow people to shop for supplies and complete other chores, television channels reported. It will last until 10 a.m. Sunday, when the government will assess the situation and decide the next course of action, the reports added.
Those venturing out on streets had their identification cards inspected by army personnel at different checkpoints, TV footage showed. Troops set up roadblocks and bunkers using sandbags across strategic locations of Dhaka, the center of the anti-quota protests.