DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus, who is set to lead a caretaker government after mass protests ousted the premier, called on compatriots Wednesday to be “ready to build the country”, ahead of his hugely anticipated return. The Nobel-winning microfinance pioneer will head the interim government as chief adviser after longtime and autocratic prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India, the presidency has said.

“Be calm and get ready to build the country,” Yunus said Wednesday in a statement, a day ahead of his expected arrival home from France, urging calm after weeks of violence in which at least 455 people were killed. “If we take the path of violence everything will be destroyed,” he added. The appointment came quickly after student leaders called on the 84-year-old Yunus - credited with lifting millions out of poverty in the South Asian country - to lead.

The decision was made in a meeting with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, the heads of the army, navy and air force, and student leaders, the president’s office said in a statement. Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said Wednesday that he hoped to swear in

the interim government the following day and that he backed Yunus. “I am certain that he will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process,” Waker said.

Yunus had travelled abroad this year while on bail after being sentenced to six months in jail for a labor charge condemned as politically motivated, and which a Dhaka court on Wednesday acquitted him of. “I’m looking forward to going back home, see what’s happening, and how we can organize ourselves to get out of the trouble we are in,” he told reporters at the airport in Paris before his flight.

There are few other details about the planned government, including the role of the military, but Yunus has said he wants to hold elections “within a few” months. “Let us make the best use of our new victory,” he said on Wednesday. “Let us not let this slip away because of our mistakes.” Hasina, 76, who had been in power since 2009, quit on Monday as hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Dhaka demanding she stand down. Jubilant crowds later stormed and then looted her palace.

Monday’s events were the culmination of more than a month of unrest, which began as protests against a plan for quotas in government jobs but morphed into an anti-Hasina movement. Hasina, who was accused of rigging January elections and widespread human rights abuses, deployed security forces to quash the protests.

Hundreds of people were killed in the crackdown, but the military turned against Hasina on the weekend and she was forced to flee in a helicopter to neighboring India. The military has since acceded to a range of demands from the student leaders, aside from Yunus’ appointment. The president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, another demand of the student leaders and the former opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP).

The head of the police force, which protesters have blamed for leading Hasina’s crackdown, was sacked on Tuesday. The new chief, Md Mainul Islam, offered an apology on Wednesday for the conduct of officers and vowed a “fair and impartial investigation” into the killings of “students, common people and the police”.

Ex-prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, 78, was also released from years of house arrest, while some political prisoners have also been released. The military has demoted some generals seen as close to Hasina and sacked Ziaul Ahsan, a commander of the feared Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force.

Since Tuesday, streets in the capital have been largely peaceful but government offices remained mostly closed. Tens of thousands of people, including opposition activists, filled thoroughfares in Dhaka on Wednesday. BNP drew hundreds of people to a rally in Dhaka and demanded elections within three months. Zia, Hasina’s archrival, addressed the rally by video link, as did her exiled eldest son Tarique Rahman, who was introduced as the country’s next prime minister. Both called on their followers not to seek revenge.

“No destruction, revenge or vengeance,” Zia said from her hospital bed. Her son said: “National elections should be held soon and power should be handed over to a government elected by the people at the earliest.” Zia had feuded and alternated power with Hasina since the early 1990s. She and Rahman were convicted of graft in 2018, in what they called a trumped-up case.

“We have been freed from a dictatorship,” said Sazid Ahnaf, 21, comparing the recent events to the 1971 independence war that split the nation from Pakistan. Police said mobs had launched revenge attacks on Hasina’s allies and their own officers, and also freed more than 500 inmates from a prison. Monday was the deadliest day since protests began, with at least 455 people killed since early July, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials and hospital doctors.

Protesters broke into parliament and torched TV stations. Others smashed statues of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s independence hero. Some businesses and homes owned by Hindus — a group seen by some in the Muslim-majority nation as close to Hasina — were also attacked. Bangladeshi rights groups and Western diplomats have expressed concerns about reports of attacks on religious, ethnic and other minority groups. Neighboring India and China, both key regional allies of Bangladesh, have called for calm. – Agencies