Bangladesh Premier Flees Country; Uprising Underway

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

DHAKA, BANGLADESH (Worthy News) – A full-scale uprising was underway Monday in Bangladesh as longtime authoritarian Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reportedly fled the country and protesters stormed her palace in deadly clashes.

Hasina boarded a helicopter headed to India after crowds ignored a national curfew to storm the prime minister’s palace in Dhaka in some of the worst violence since the birth of the South Asian nation more than five decades ago.

Sheikh Hasina, 76, has ruled the 170 million-strong South Asian nation with an iron fist since 2009.

In Bangladesh, converts to Christianity face the most severe restrictions, discrimination, and attacks in the Muslim-majority nation, according to Christians and rights activists.

A government source said that Hasina and her sister had been taken to a “safe shelter” away from her official residence ahead of the flight to India.

The Bangladesh army chief was to address the nation as unrest spread.

MANY KILLED

At least 95 people, including at least 14 police officers, died in clashes in the capital on Sunday, according to the country’s leading Bengali-language daily newspaper, Prothom Alo. Hundreds more were injured in the violence.

Authorities first shut off mobile internet on Sunday to quell the unrest, while broadband internet stopped working late Monday morning. Sources said this is the second internet blackout in the country after the protests turned deadly in July.

On Monday, after three hours of suspension of broadband services, broadband and mobile internet returned to the nation between India and Myanmar, also known as Burma.

The military-imposed curfew began Sunday night and covered Dhaka and other divisional and district headquarters. The government had earlier imposed a curfew with some exceptions in the capital and elsewhere.

The government also announced a holiday from Monday to Wednesday. Courts were to be closed indefinitely. Mobile internet service was cut off, and social media platforms such as Facebook and messaging applications, including WhatsApp, were inaccessible on Monday.

Bangladesh has previously shut down internet services in areas affected by protests, using it as a measure to suppress dissent by opposition parties, observers said.

SABOTAGE ALLEGATIONS

Hasina said the protesters who engaged in “sabotage” and destruction were no longer students but criminals, and she said the people should deal with them with iron hands.

The prime minister’s ruling Awami League party said the demand for her resignation showed that the protests had been taken over by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the now-banned Jamaat-e-Islami party.

The prime minister was elected for a fourth consecutive term in a January vote boycotted by her primary opponents, triggering questions over how free and fair the vote was. Thousands of opposition members were jailed in the lead-up to the polls, which the government defended as democratically held.

Despite the crackdown, hundreds of thousands prepared for a march against her rule in Dhaka, making it difficult for her to return from India.

“One, two, three, four, Sheikh Hasina is a dictator!” The chant has become increasingly popular among young protesters in Bangladesh.

Her 15 years in power have been rife with accusations of forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings, and the crushing of opposition figures and her critics.

She has denied the charges, and her government often accuses the main opposition parties of fuelling protests.

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