Bangladesh Student Protesters Say ‘Bloody July Has Not Ended For Us’, Want Hasina to Step Down
Arnab Ganguly | 03 July 2024 | The Telegraph
The world is three days into the month of August, but not the student protesters in Bangladesh. For Saturday’s call for a nationwide assembly in various towns and cities including the capital of Dhaka, the event date was given as 34th July in various social media posts.
“Bloody July has not ended for us,” a student activist, who has been on the run from the government crackdown on the job-quota protests since last month, told The Telegraph Online.
Much blood has been spilled on the streets of India’s eastern neighbour since July. The Bangladesh government has pegged the death toll from the crackdown on the protests at 150 people. Dhaka daily Prothom Alo puts it at over 200. Many others in Bangladesh believe the actual number could be far higher.
The nine-point demand raised by the Students against Discrimination has now been scaled down to one: Resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her ministers.
The protesters announced the new demand at Dhaka’s Shaheed Minar on Saturday afternoon in a rally attended by students, teachers and others. Bangladeshi musicians who had assembled at Dhan Mundi’s Rabindra Sarobar marched to Shaheed Minar to express their solidarity with the students….