The police on Saturday foiled a demonstration of jobseekers, and arrested at least 13 protesters, who were demanding increasing the age limit to apply for civil-service jobs, in Dhaka’s Shahbag intersection.
Around 100 students and jobseekers gathered in front of the Raju memorial sculpture on Dhaka University campus, demanding an extension to the age limit for government jobs to 35 years, at about 10:30am.
Later, around 300 protesters blocked Shahbag intersection at about 3:30pm. But after an hour, police removed them from the road and arrested 13 protesters.
After the incident, protesters went back to the Raju memorial sculpture and held sit-in programme, where they announced that they would not return home until their demands were met.
They said that the age limit for jobs was at least 35 years in around 162 countries of the world, while some of them were open. The developed countries of the world, including India, had done a lot of research and extended age limit to 35, according to international standards.
Shariful Islam Shubo, one of the protestors, said that they wanted to increase the age limit for job application permanently. In continuation of that, they had been carrying out different programmes since last August.
‘The age limit for all types of jobs in the country should be 35 years,’ he added.
Shabagh police station officer-in-charge Mostazirur Rahman could not be reached for comment over the incident despite repeated attempts.
