Drenched in blood - how Bangladesh protests turned deadly
12:40AM;24/07/2024
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS
Saumitra Shuvra, Tarekuzzaman Shimul and Marium Sultana
BBC Bangla, Dhaka
Published
Anti-government protests have sparked nationwide clashes in Bangladesh between police and university students. At least 150 people have been killed - and some of those caught up in the bloodshed have described to the BBC what happened.
One student said demonstrators in the capital Dhaka just wanted to hold a peaceful rally, but the police "ruined" it by attacking them as they were gathering.
A student leader now recovering in hospital described how he was blindfolded and tortured by people claiming to be police.
Meanwhile, an emergency department doctor said they were overwhelmed as dozens of young people with gunshot wounds were brought in at the height of the clashes.
Security forces are accused of excessive force but the government has blamed political opponents for the unrest, which erupted after quotas were imposed on government jobs. Most of these have now been scrapped on Supreme Court orders.
A nationwide internet blackout since Thursday has restricted the flow of information in the country, where a curfew is being enforced by thousands of soldiers.
Raya (not her real name), a student at the private BRAC university, told BBC Bangla she first joined the protests on Wednesday 17 July, but it was the following day that clashes with police got "really horrible".
"Police attacked students by throwing tear gas shells after 11:30am. At that moment, a few students picked up those tear gas shells and threw them back towards the policemen," was how she described it.
She said the police later started using rubber bullets and at one point trapped the students in their campus, even stopping them from taking the badly injured to hospital.
Then, in the afternoon, the police ordered them to leave.
"On that day, we just wanted to do a peaceful rally, but the police ruined the whole environment before we could do anything," Raya said.
