Bangladesh protests demand PM resign, army stands ‘by the people’

DHAKA, Bangladesh: &nbsp, Thousands of Bangladeshi protesters, many wielding sticks, crowded into a central Dhaka square on Sunday ( Aug 4 ) for mass protests demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resign following a deadly police crackdown.

Asif Mahmud, one of the principal figures behind a global civil disobedience plan, urged supporters to be prepared to struggle.

” Make bamboo sticks and separate Bangladesh”, he wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

In response to earlier demonstrations, the army intervened to help rebuild purchase; however, some former military officials have since joined the student movement, and former army captain public Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan turned his Facebook profile picture dark as a show of support.

The present army chief, Waker-uz-Zaman, told officers on Saturday that the” Bangladesh Army is the people’s image of trust,” in a letter to officers at the military’s Dhaka headquarters.

According to an army statement released late on Saturday, he said,” It always stood by the people and will do so for the sake of people and in any need of the state.”

The statement did not specifically state whether the troops supported the demonstrations or provided additional information.

In some of Hasina’s worst unrest in 15 years, riots against legal services job quotas sparked days of havoc in July that resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people.

Troops recently restored get, but this week, in a total non-cooperation movement aimed at paralyzing the government, large crowds poured into the streets.

On Saturday, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched in Dhaka, the officers were essentially bystanders watching the demonstrations.