DHAKA: At least eight people were killed on Sunday in clashes between Bangladeshi protesters demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation and government supporters, stabbed or shot, police and doctors said.
Police and hospital doctors told AFP that three people were killed in Pabna North district, two in Rangpur North district, two in the capital Dhaka's Munshiganj district and one in Magura West district.
Asif Mahmood, one of the leading protest leaders in the nationwide civil disobedience campaign, urged his supporters to prepare for a fight.
“Prepare your bamboo sticks and liberate Bangladesh,” he wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
Although the military has stepped in to help restore order since the previous protests, some former military officers have joined the student movement, and former Army Chief of Staff General Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan changed his Facebook profile picture to red to show support.
“The Bangladesh Army is a symbol of the people's trust,” Army Chief of Staff General Waqar-Uz-Zaman told officers at the army headquarters in Dhaka on Saturday.
“The military has always stood with the people and will do so for the people and for any need of the country,” he said, according to a military statement released late Saturday.
The statement gave no further details or made clear whether the military supported the protests.
In July, days of protests against limits on civil servant positions continued, and more than 200 people were killed in the deadliest riots of Hasina's 15-year term.
The military temporarily restored order, but this week huge crowds returned to the streets in a full-scale campaign of non-cooperation aimed at paralyzing the government.
When hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through Dhaka on Saturday, police were mostly onlookers.
Growing movement
The protests have spread into an anti-government movement across the South Asian country of about 170 million people.
The mass movement involved people from all walks of life in Bangladesh, including actors, musicians and singers, and rap songs appealing for people's support went viral on social media.
“It's not about job allocation anymore,” said Sakhawat, a young female protester who gave only one name as she daubed graffiti on a wall calling Hasina a “murderer” at a Dhaka protest site.
“What we want is for our next generation to be able to live freely in this country.”
Protests in support of the government are also expected.
Obaidul Quader, general secretary of Hasina's ruling Awami League, urged party activists to gather in “every block of Dhaka city” and “every district” across the country to show support for the government.
“We don't want to get involved in any kind of confrontation,” Quader said.
Dhaka, a sprawling metropolis of 20 million people, was tense on Sunday as cars and buses dwindled on its usually busy streets.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters are expected to take part in rallies in Dhaka and nationwide.
Student protest
The group that organized the initial protests, Students Against Discrimination, called for rallies nationwide.
The protests are expected to take place at the entrance to Dhaka, with the main rally expected to take place at Shahbagh Square in central Dhaka, where crowds are expected to gather on Sunday morning.
“We will protest and rally peacefully,” the group said in a statement late Saturday. “But if someone attacks us, we urge everyone to be fully prepared.”
The Student Coalition Against Discrimination has asked its citizens to stop paying taxes and public service fees from Sunday to put pressure on the government.
They also called on government employees and workers at the country's economically important garment factories to strike.
Hasina, 76, has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January with virtually no opposition.
Human rights groups accuse her government of abusing state power to seize power and suppress dissent, including through extrajudicial killings of opposition activists.
The protests began in early July over the reintroduction of a quota system that allocates more than half of all government jobs to certain groups. It was later scaled back by Bangladesh's highest court.
