Image source, BBC Bangladesh/Mukimul Ahsan
- author, Flora Drury and Ambarasan Ethirajan
- role, BBC News
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A high alert has been issued across Bangladesh as violent clashes between students and police continue.
The capital Dhaka is The internet was almost completely cut off and phone lines were down.
On Thursday evening, thousands of protesters stormed state broadcaster BTV, destroying furniture, smashing windows and lights and setting parts on fire.
Bangladesh’s information minister told the BBC that broadcasts had been suspended and most staff had left buildings in the capital.
A post on BTV’s official Facebook page warned that a “large number” of people were trapped inside the building and called for help from firefighters to put out the blaze.
A senior BTV reporter, who did not want to be named, told the BBC: “The situation was so bad that we had no choice but to leave the place. Some of our colleagues were trapped inside. We don’t know what happened to them.”
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appeared on television on Wednesday night to appeal for calm following days of violent protests that have left at least 19 people dead, possibly many more, and hundreds injured.
Students are rallying to demand changes to a system that reserves a third of public sector jobs for relatives of veterans of the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Students claim that the system is discriminatory and want to be hired on the basis of merit.
The government has tried to quell the protests, shutting down mobile internet across the country on Thursday to slow down the students’ actions.
It was the deadliest day so far, according to the news agency AFP, with a total of 32 people killed during the protests, according to hospital figures.
BBC Bengali has confirmed 19 deaths so far, 13 of them on Thursday, including a 32-year-old journalist from the Dhaka Times.
Sheikh Hasina condemned the deaths of protesters as “murder” in a television appearance on Wednesday, but protest organizers largely ignored her remarks and rejected government offers of talks.
“The government has killed so many people in one day that it cannot engage in any discussion in the current circumstances,” said Nahid Iqbal, a leader of the anti-quota protests.
Another student, Aleem Khan, 22, told the BBC: “On the one hand the prime minister is calling for an end to the violence, but on the other hand he is using pro-government groups and the police to attack students.”
On Thursday, police used tear gas and rubber bullets as students set up human blockades in the streets.
According to a BTV station official, the students who attacked BTV had previously “set fire” a police station.
“They chased the police officers when they took refuge in the BTV offices,” the official told AFP. “Angry protesters caused chaos here.”
Meanwhile, BBC Bengali spoke to a group of medical students who had taken refuge on the medical college grounds after being attacked by a group of ruling party supporters.
One of the students, Sumi, told the BBC: “I came here to protest against discrimination within the civil service and now many students have been killed by the police so I am also protesting against that.”
“Our protest is peaceful but the way the attack took place makes me feel like we might be killed by pro-ruling groups.”
