DHAKA: Bangladeshi student protest leader Nahid Islam lay in a hospital room in the capital Dhaka on Monday, bruised and battered and in fear for his life. The 26-year-old sociology graduate leads Students Against Discrimination, the main group organizing demonstrations against employment quotas for sought-after government jobs that spiraled into deadly violence.

Nahid personally led protests against the quotas, which critics say are used to benefit ruling Awami League party loyalists, until Friday. Wearing a national flag as a bandana, he roused demonstrators with the chant: “Quota or merit? Merit, merit.” However, in the early hours of Saturday, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives broke through the gate of a friend’s house where he had been staying due to a government-imposed curfew. He fled to the roof but to no avail. “Four, five people forcibly took me down and took me to their car. I was blindfolded and handcuffed,” Nahid told AFP in an interview in hospital.

He said he was driven to a house 30 or 40 minutes away and interrogated. “Why we are doing this, what is our purpose, why we were not withdrawing the protests, who was behind this movement,” Nahid said he was asked. “They were not happy with my replies and then at one stage they started beating me, they hit me with something like an iron bar and at one stage I lost consciousness.”

He said he found himself on a roadside in Dhaka’s east when he came to his senses early on Sunday morning. A rickshaw took him home and his family took him to hospital. Nahid asked AFP not to identify where he was being treated for fear of being attacked by members of the ruling party’s youth league or police. “Me and many other coordinators are fearful for their lives,” he said, displaying a large purple bruise on his right arm. “A few of my fellow coordinators are missing.”

‘Irresponsible behavior’

Nahid has not been able to get a job since graduating from Dhaka University but has been involved in student politics since joining protests against the employment quotas in 2018. This time, the demonstrations snowballed into some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.

Authorities cracked down on protesters and ordered a curfew, while a widespread internet shutdown was imposed on Thursday. Nahid accused authorities of “irresponsible behavior”, “provocative remarks” and repression, blaming them for the escalating tension. “People are expressing their anger at the government,” he said. “We want justice for people who were martyred in the movement and injured. The ministers, the heads of law enforcement agencies who ordered the attack, shooting, we want their resignation,” he said. 

The scale of the violence remained unclear on Monday but an AFP tally of victims reported by police and hospitals put the death toll from the clashes at 163, including several police officers.

Information is limited by official reticence and the internet shutdown, which Nahid demanded be lifted. “The government is completely controlling media,” he said. “In Bangladesh the human rights situation has gravely collapsed We are not sure how many people were killed.” — AFP