BBCStudents are taking to the streets in Dhaka to control visitors and keep things moving as police launch a strike following the uprising that overthrew prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
On the typically noisy and crowded streets of the Bangladeshi capital, the police, who are typically highly visible, are nowhere to be found.
After weeks of turmoil that have resulted in hundreds of fatalities, it seems as though just students and some armed forces are keeping the law and order. An interim federal is promised, but has yet to get business.
Following the deadly crackdown that sparked such a stir, police then worry about their health. It failed to stop anti-government demonstrations that had started last month over legal services work limits.
Two days after Ms. Hasina escaped to India, things are calmer, but there are still reports of occasional violence and looting.
Some Bangladeshis, particularly the young, expect the country is at a turning level.
” I want freedom of expression. I want a corruption-free state. I want people to have the proper to protest”, Noorjahan Mily, 21, an Open University undergraduate, told the BBC.
” I am uncertain about where the land is heading, because the state has changed. However, I will only be joyful when their needs are satisfied, regardless of whether the prejudice will continue.
Now that electricity has been seized from the hands of the nation’s long-standing king, the nation is now attempting to accept the impact of what has just transpired.
More than 400 people were killed in the new turmoil, most of them residents shot by security troops, but also a number of officers. The battle that led to the nation’s independence in 1971 is the bloodiest instance of this kind.
ReutersA security guard at the airport informed me that the government had used excessive force, and that the position was very poor.
” Several children – as young as six, seven and eight – were killed”, he said.
Outside the aircraft, kids wearing orange hi-vis jackets were directing customers.
” There’s no police here, only students”, the driver said. ” There is no state, kids are doing 100 % security”.
He agreed with the kids, saying they had done a good thing.
A group of kids were putting out foam cone to control the flow of vehicles as we passed.
” I’m here to help with traffic and my brothers ‘ protection.” From the very outset, I participated in the limit movements that turned into a huge motion”, Julkernayeem Rahat, a company management student at University of Asia Pacific, told the BBC.
EPA” We are glad we’ve removed the autocratic government. We have gained our liberty and our sovereignty”.
He was convinced that the person named as interim president, Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus, will be able to type a government after a few months” with the help of students, lawyers, public people”.
” Bangladesh’s future is in the hands of the student leaders. God willing, things will be good”, said the 22-year-old.
Mahamudul Hassan, 21, is studying on the same course.
” I want democracy so that people of all walks of life can enjoy equal opportunities, equal rights”. He envisions” a leader who can bring those things to pass.”
Mr Yunus was appointed to the post late on Tuesday by Bangladesh’s president, meeting a key demand of student protesters, who said they would not accept an army-led government. He may be sworn in on Thursday after recovering from surgery in France.
He stated to reporters on Wednesday at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, where he was scheduled to take a flight to Dhaka, that he was looking forward to returning home and seeing what is happening and how we can organize ourselves to escape the trouble we’re in.
He has urged people to abstain from all forms of violence in response to reports of revenge attacks and looting on Sheikh Hasina’s supporters, warning that if they did not, they ran the risk of everything being destroyed.
The army chief assured the people that Mr. Yunus would be able to lead us through a beautiful democratic process in an address on Wednesday, and that we would gain from it.
Although how things turn out will be determined, the students appear to be doing a good job in terms of traffic management.
The BBC reported that things were running much better than they did when we traveled to January to watch the contentious elections that the main opposition boycotted, which resulted in Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League winning a fourth term in power.
When a group of men pulled large metal rods for a construction project, it almost seemed like business as usual.
” The traffic system is now better,” he declared. The students are successfully managing. It’s better than when the police were here”, said Mohammed Shwapan, who has been a Dhaka driver for 24 years. ” Today is busier than yesterday”.
He favors the appointment of an interim leader.
” As Mr Yunus is well known internationally, he can mitigate any potential economic collapse.
How will Bangladesh be able to handle payments, I asks,” I’m concerned about the international debt.” That’s why I think he can do a good job.”
The challenges ahead are enormous, and not just economic. Sheikh Hasina’s 15 years in power are still undergoing healing, many wounds.
Her administration is credited with bringing about many Bangladeshis ‘ standard of living to better health. But she was also accused of serious human rights abuses, including numerous extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances.
Many people have accounts of the experiences their families had.
On the plane to Dhaka, I managed to close my eyes for a few minutes. On the back pocket of the seat in front, I discovered a handwritten note on an airsick bag.
Someone claimed that Sheikh Hasina and his brother were the ones who kidnapped their father and killed him. For the safety of his wife and children, he had spent the last eight years living in self-imposed exile.
Now he is coming back to what he calls” a free country”, to visit his father’s grave, the note said.