Newsman: The student protest leaders in Bangladesg said an interim government should be led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. On Tuesday, the president’s office said, to pave the way for an interim government Bangladesh’s Parliament has been dissolved.
Muhammad Yunus supported the protests and told Indian media that Monday was Bangladesh’s “second liberation day.” Yunus told Indian news channel ‘Times Now’ that people in Bangladesh were “angry at India because you are supporting the person who destroyed our lives.”
Nahid Islam, 26, one of the key coordinator of the student movement said the students had shared their plans with Yunus and that “he has agreed to take on this responsibility at our invitation.”
“Any government other than the one we recommended would not be accepted,” Nahid Islam, 26, one of the key coordinator of the student movement, said in a video on Facebook.
Muhammad Yunus 84, received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering the use of microcredit to alleviate poverty. He had faced legal charges under the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who resigned and left the country Monday after weeks of student-led deadliest protests that killed hundreds of people. Munammad Yunus said charges against him are politically motivated.
Army Chief Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman, who announced Hasina’s resignation Monday, was set to meet Tuesday with student protest leaders who demanded that Parliament be dissolved by 3 p.m. (5 a.m. ET), urging “revolutionary students to be ready” if the deadline was not met.
In a statement Tuesday, Bangladesh police said the country was “passing through an unprecedented crisis.”
“The police force is now without any leadership as the accused have gone into hiding. Junior members, who are mostly innocent, are currently in harm’s way,” said Md Sohel Rana, additional deputy inspector general of the Police Staff College.
“At a time like this, I urge everyone to show restraint and refrain from harming us and destroying public property,” he said.
On Tuesday, the streets of Dhaka were littered with debris, burned-out cars and remnants of makeshift barricades, while the smell of fires lingered in the air. Civilian volunteers took it upon themselves to direct traffic in the city until the police returned.
Angry crowds that blamed police for the government’s violent crackdown on protesters surrounded a number of police stations in Dhaka, the capital, throwing stones and setting fires killing and incapacitated police according to police and local news media. Protesters stormed both the Prime minister’s office and the government residence including the national parliament building. Homes, offices and businesses belonging to people viewed as Hasina supporters were also attacked.
