Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India sparking euphoria and looting by tens of thousands of protesters who led a campaign against her 15-year rule.
Hasina’s hasty departure on a helicopter Monday is the second fall from grace of a South Asian leader since 2022 when Sri Lankan leader Mahinda Rajapakse fled the island nation rocked by protests over rising prices.
The Bangladeshi uprising that claimed 440 lives by a media count and left many injured since June also shattered its image as a poster child of development and left it in a power vacuum.
Critics allege Hasina, who faced charges of extra-judicial killings, forced disappearances and imprisonment of rivals, pursued partisan policies such as a job quota system in the civil services that favoured her loyalists.
In Delhi, Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar confirmed her escape as diplomats said the 76-year-old Hasina, who had been in office for 20 years, could seek asylum in Britain.
“At very short notice, she requested approval to come for the moment to India,” Jaishankar said and also voiced his “worry” over reports of attacks on Hindus.
‘We are also monitoring the situation with regard to the state of minorities (Hindus),” he told parliament.
Rival freed
President Shahabuddin dissolved the Bangladeshi parliament under pressure from students who had set 09:00 GMT Monday as a deadline.
The country’s first woman prime minister Khaleda Zia who led the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) was set free. The two-term premier was given a 17-year jail term in a corruption case in 2018.
"I call upon the people of Bangladesh to display restraint and calm in the midst of this transitional moment on our democratic path," Rahman said in a X post Tuesday.
The national Police Employee Association with thousands of officers on its rolls called a general strike.
“Until the security of every member of the police is secured, we are declaring a strike,” it said in a reference to the 13 policemen among 135 people killed in Monday’s clashes.
BDNews24.com said some officers were seen patrolling the streets and several schools reopened after a lengthy closure over Hasina's job quota system.
Bangladesh’s former foreign secretary Samsher Mubin Chowdhury rejected suggestions Pakistan fomented trouble in the country of 170 million Bengali-speaking people.
“It is unfair,” Chowdhury told Indian TV and cited rigged elections and malpractices by Hasina’s Awami League party as the root cause of the turmoil.
Protesters were seen scouring the streets as troopers refused to open fire on “fellow countrymen.”
“Her Awami League clowns are in hiding but we will get them,” a looter said as others stripped artefacts from the parliament building in capital Dhaka.
Nashid Islam, a prominent leader of the protesting students, called for Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to lead an interim government.
The 2006 Nobel laureate now in Paris for the Olympic Games, described Hasina’s ouster as the “second liberation day” of Bangladesh which was formed in 1971 from Pakistan’s eastern rump following a war with India.
Reactions
The US hailed the army for its display of "restraint" and said an interim government should be formed.
“Too many lives have been lost over the past several weeks, and we urge calm and restraint in the days ahead," US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said as protesters raided a Bangladeshi diplomatic mission in New York.
The EU urged for an "orderly and peaceful transition towards a democratically elected government” in Bangladesh.
London sought an international probe into the violence which analysts said could puncture Hasina’s hopes of seeking a safe haven in Britain.
"The people of Bangladesh deserve a full and independent UN-led investigation into the events of the past few weeks," Foreign Secretary David Lammy said.
China called for “social stability” in South Asia’s second largest economy.
“As a friendly neighbour and comprehensive strategic cooperative partner of Bangladesh, China sincerely hopes that social stability will be restored soon in the country,” a foreign ministry spokesman said in Beijing.
India, meanwhile shut flight, train and bus services to Bangladesh.
