PROTESTERS in Bangladesh have taken to the streets to demand justice for the more than 200 people killed in last month’s student-led demonstrations over quotas in government jobs.
The large protests on Saturday came as student leaders called for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign until Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government resigns.
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organising the initial protests, rebuffed an offer of talks with Hasina earlier in the day.
“She must resign and she must face trial,” Nahid Islam, the group’s leader, told a crowd of thousands at a monument to national heroes in the capital Dhaka to roars of approval.
Reporting from Dhaka, Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury said that the student movement had turned “into a public movement“, noting that people from all walks of life had joined Saturday’s protests calling for the government to resign.
He added that clashes also took place between protesters and police in the Gazipur and Comilla districts in the capital’s outskirts.
Hasina on Saturday called upon protest leaders to meet her at her official residence Ganabhaban, saying the “door is open”.
“I want to sit with the agitating students of the movement and listen to them. I want no conflict,” she said, according to local media.
The prime minister has also appointed three senior officials to negotiate with the protesters, Chowdhury reported.
