Thousands of Ansar personnel on Sunday kept all the entrances of the Bangladesh Secretariat blocked even after the office hours pressing for nationalisation of their jobs and later clashed with students, who rushed to get the leaders of the anti-discrimination student movement out of the administrative hub.
About 35 students and six Ansar members were injured in the clash and were taken to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital before the protesting Ansar members were removed from the place at about 10:40pm.
The situation came under control as additional police and army personnel were deployed and those who were confined in the secretariat were brought out.
The agitating Ansar members blocked the roads of the secretariat holding a sit-in at around 12:00pm and also confined the secretariat officials blocking all the gates of the secretariat in the聽 afternoon to press home their one-point demand.
Some officials, however, were seen leaving the secretariat without their vehicles in the evening. Later, the other confined officials came out in the vehicles under the protection of the army.聽
Several meeting were held with representative of coordinators of Ansar and interim government home affairs adviser Md Jahangir Alam, information adviser Nahid Islam, sports adviser Asif Mahmud and Ansar-VDP director general Abdul Motaleb Sajjad Mahmud.
At first, a seven-member representative of Ansar met with the home adviser and discussed their demands.
Following the meeting, a representative Moniruzzaman announced the protesters that the authorities revoked the six-month rest rule and they would look into the demands gradually.
The protesters, however, rejected the announcement chanting slogans for nationalisation of their jobs.
Newly appointed DG Sajjad talked with the Ansar in front of the secretariat entrance and announced that he was very much aware of the discriminations in the troupe and the initiative to abolish those discriminations were already begun.
He also assured the Ansar that he would see the results of the initiatives within seven days but protesters again rejected the assurance demanding written assurance.
Ansar personnel effused to leave the street till nationalisation of their jobs.
He said that Ansar members from across the country, including Dhaka, Chattogram, Barishal, Narayanganj and Noakhali joined their protest, which began on August 11.
A seven-member committee was also formed on Saturday to examine logical demands of Ansar-VDP.
They began their protests about a week after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India on August 5 amid a student-led mass uprising.
They have been continuing their protests for more than two weeks demanding job regularisation, cancelling vacation in every three years and others.
According to Ansar VDP officials, 98,000鈥�99,000 trained Ansar members are active in the force with 55,000 now employed in different government and private establishments.
