Bangladesh’s Hasina Wajid has stepped down from the post of Prime Minister in the face of mass protests demanding her resignation.
Earlier reports had said that the prime minister had left the capital Dhaka, a source close to the embattled leader told AFP on Monday.
“She and her sister have left Ganabhaban (the premier’s official residence) for a safer place,” the source told AFP. “She wanted to record a speech. But she could not get an opportunity to do that.”
The development was followed by Bangladesh’s army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman addressing the nation during which he announced that the deaths during the anti-government protest would be investigated.
The army chief added that an interim government would be formed in the country and that talks in this regard were underway.
Meanwhile, Indian media alleged Hasina had left Bangladesh by military helicopter, reportedly bound for India after the protestors stormed the Prime Minister’s House in Dhaka.
Bangladeshi student leaders on Saturday said they would carry on a planned nationwide civil disobedience campaign until Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned following last month’s deadly police crackdown on protesters.
Rallies against civil service job quotas sparked days of mayhem in July that killed more than 200 people in some of the worst unrest of Hasina’s 15-year tenure.
Troop deployments briefly restored order but crowds returned to the streets in huge numbers this week ahead of an all-out non-cooperation movement aimed at paralyzing the government planned to begin on Sunday.
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing the initial protests, rebuffed an offer of talks with Hasina earlier in the day before announcing their campaign would continue until the premier and her government step down.
“She must resign and she must face trial,” Nahid Islam, the group’s leader, told a crowd of thousands at a monument to national heroes in the capital Dhaka to roars of approval.
Students Against Discrimination have asked their compatriots to cease paying taxes and utility bills from Sunday to pile pressure on the government.
They have also asked government workers and laborers in the country’s economically vital garment factories to strike.
“She must go because we don’t need this authoritarian government,” Nijhum Yasmin, 20, told AFP from one of many protests staged around Dhaka on Saturday.
“Did we liberate the country to see our brothers and sisters shot dead by this regime?”
The looming non-cooperation campaign deliberately evokes a historical civil disobedience campaign during Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.
