DHAKA: Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus appealed for religious unity Saturday after embracing the weeping mother of a student shot dead by police, a flashpoint in mass protests that ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule. Nobel laureate Yunus, 84, returned from Europe this week to helm a temporary administration facing the monumental challenge of ending disorder and enacting democratic reforms. “Our responsibility is to build a new Bangladesh,” he told reporters.

Several reprisal attacks against the country’s Hindu minority since autocratic ex-premier Hasina’s toppling have caused alarm in neighboring India as well as fear at home. Yunus called for calm during a visit to the northern city of Rangpur by invoking the memory of Abu Sayeed, the first student slain during last month’s unrest. “Don’t differentiate by religion”, he said. “Abu Sayeed is now in every home. The way he stood, we have to do the same,” he added. “There are no differences in Abu Sayeed’s Bangladesh.”

Sayeed, 25, was shot dead by police at close range on July 16 at the start of a police crackdown on student-led protests against Hasina’s government. His mother sobbed as she clung to a visibly emotional Yunus, who had come to pay his respects alongside members of the “advisory” cabinet now administering the country. Fellow cabinet member Nahid Islam, a 26-year-old sociology graduate who led the protests that culminated in Hasina’s ouster, wept by the leader’s side.

DHAKA: Students hold Bangladesh's national flags as they protest to demand the resignation of Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan, in front of the Supreme Court in Dhaka on August 10, 2024.

Allies purged

Hasina, 76, fled by helicopter to neighboring India on Monday as protesters flooded Dhaka’s streets in a dramatic end to her iron-fisted rule. Her government was accused of widespread human rights abuses including the extrajudicial killing of thousands of her political opponents. Cabinet ministers left blindsided by her sudden fall have gone to ground, while several top appointees have been forced out of office — including the national police chief and the central bank governor.

The chief justice of the Supreme Court became on Saturday the latest to announce his departure. “It’s not possible anymore for me to perform the duty,” Obaidul Hassan said in a statement. “Therefore, I have decided to resign.” Appointed last year, Hassan earlier oversaw a much-criticized war crimes tribunal that ordered the execution of Hasina’s opponents, and his brother was her longtime secretary.

His announcement came after hundreds of protesters gathered outside the court to demand he and other judges step down by the early afternoon. “No one should do anything that pits the Supreme Court against the mass uprising of the students and the people,” Asif Nazrul, a student protest leader now serving in Yunus’ government, told reporters. — AFP