The Student Movement Against Discrimination platform for quota reform protests on Tuesday announced the ‘March for Justice’ programme to be held today in all courts, campuses and roads across the country, demanding trial for wholesale arrests, attacks, cases, enforced disappearances, and killings of students and ordinary people through probes by the United Nations.Â
The programme will also uphold the platform’s nine-point demand, including an unconditional apology from prime minister Sheikh Hasina, removal of certain ministers from government and party, sacking and trial of police officials responsible for the killings, one of the platform coordinators Abdul Hannan Masud made the announcement through a press release on Tuesday night.
Their other demands include reopening all the university campuses, educational institutions and residential halls with immediate withdrawal of all forces, including the army, Border Guard Bangladesh, Rapid Action Battalion, police and Special Weapons and Tactics, and compensation for the families of the students and people martyred and injured in the movement.
Abdul Hannan said that no government could stop movement by firing bullets on students.
‘We urge the government to accept the nine-point demand of the student community to make the country stable,’ he added.
He said that the government was now busy in passing the blame on to the opposition political parties.
‘The government use the state machinery in an autocratic way and applied excessive force against the unarmed protesting students to suppress the movement,’ he added.
The curfew will remain relaxed from 7:00am to 8:00pm in Dhaka city, Dhaka, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Narsingdi districts from Wednesday to Saturday, home minister told reporters after holding a high level meeting at the secretariat.Â
The minister said that the decision of the other districts would be taken by deputy commissioners concerned.
The government imposed curfew and deployed army midnight past July 19 amid massive student protests in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.
Students’ protests that had been continuing since early July seeking reform in quotas for government jobs turned violent following an attack on protesters by the ruling party student body, the Bangladesh Chhatra League, on July 15.
The resulting backlash prompted the government to launch a brutal crackdown on protesters, leaving at least 213 killed in clashes and in the aftermath between July 16 and July 29.
