Protesting high school students have blocked major intersections in Bangladesh’s congested capital Dhaka for five straight days, choking traffic and vandalizing vehicles as they demonstrate against a bus accident that killed two teens. Authorities have urged an end to the protests, as the students’ outrage paralyzes the city of 18 million. Police have reportedly fired tear gas and blanks in an effort to disperse the crowds, and on Thursday, protests turned violent with several reported assaults. Marches and sit-ins along main thoroughfares have rendered Dhaka’s daily gridlock impassable. The U.S. and Australia embassies warned of significant delays and disruptions. Students marched through city streets demanding to see people’s driving licenses and parading through the streets chanting “we want justice.” The government shut down high schools, according to Agence France-Presse, and officials promised the teens their road safety concerns would be considered. But students showed no signs of abandoning their demonstration. “They should have taken our demands seriously, but they didn’t,” Imran Ahmed, a protesting student, told AFP. Bangladeshi students protest in Dhaka on Aug. 2, 2018. Mehedi Hasan—NurPhoto/Getty Images The protest began Sunday after a bus racing for passengers reportedly struck a group of waiting college students, killing two and injuring several others. Dhaka’s buses are notoriously unregulated and accident-prone. Operated by competing private companies, the coaches race to get to waiting passengers first. Research from the National Committee to Protect Shipping, Roads and Railways found that more than 4,200 people were killed in road accidents last year, with most of the fatalities caused by reckless drivers. To change the status quo, agitated students issued nine demands, including capital punishment for irresponsible driving, according to local broadcaster bdnews24. Until their demands are met, students have reportedly taken up enforcing traffic laws on their own, stopping driver for license checks. Bus companies have responded by taking their vehicles off the road, leaving commuters stranded. On Thursday, a traffic sergeant refused to show his driving license, prompting students to seize his motorbike and set it on fire, according to the Dhaka Tribune. Attempting to defuse the standoff escalating across multiple parts of the city, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reportedly agreed Thursday to implement the nine-point demands. Traffic authorities have already met some of the stipulations, and will soon install footbridges near schools and adopt tougher enforcement measures against drivers without proper licenses, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said, according to the Tribune. “They will set up check posts at each point in the city from where buses set off,” he said. He called on the students to stop playing vigilante traffic cops. “In the last five days 317 vehicles have been vandalized and eight burned. We are urging you not to continue this,” he said. Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. Please enter a valid email address. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again. Sign Up Now An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later. Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Write to Laignee Barron at Laignee.Barron@time.com.<doc-sep>On 29 July, a bus ploughed through a crowd of people in Dhaka, killing two college students. Massive protests have now brought the city to a virtual standstill. About five minutes after classes ended at Dhaka's Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College on 29 July, a bus ploughed through a crowd, killing two students of the institute. The accident took place as the bus was racing with another for passengers, reported The Daily Star. This incident triggered massive protests by students, which have brought Bangladesh's capital to a standstill. The two students killed were identified as 18-year-old Abdul Karim alias Rajib Uddin and 17-year-old Dia Khanam Mim. A source told Firstpost that the two buses racing against each other were owned by Jabale Nur, a private bus operator with links to the brother-in-law of Shipping Minister Shahajahan Khan. However, Khan was quoted as saying by The Daily Star that none of his relatives had any links with the company. He tried to clarify that his brother-in-law was one of the 12 directors of the firm earlier but has not had any ties with the company for the past five years. Adding to citizens' anger, a bus hit and killed a biker on Friday morning in Dhaka's Moghbazar area, after which a mob set the vehicle on fire. No casualties were reported in the protests. Students have stopped thousands of vehicles, including those of top officials and judges, demanding to see whether the cars were registered and the drivers licensed. One minister had to abandon his vehicle in the street after protesters found that his paperwork was not in order, according to news reports. Dhaka cut off from rest of Bangladesh The protests, in which about 115 people have been injured so far, have largely cut off the capital from the rest of Bangladesh, as the demonstrators pressed their demand for safer roads. Hours after the accident, students vandalised over 100 vehicles on a busy road in Dhaka. Some protesters also hurled brick chips at vehicles. Witnesses said the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators at Dhaka's Jigatola area and alleged that pro-government activists had attacked youngsters, including some of those rushing to nearby hospitals for treatment. Many alleged that people who attacked students who were demonstrating were members of the Bangladesh Chhatro League. The police, however, denied that they had fired rubber bullets or tear gas at the protesters. "It's not true. Nothing happened at Jigatola," Dhaka Police spokesperson Masudur Rahman said. Earlier on Saturday, thousands of students in school uniforms defied rain to block major intersections in the capital for the seventh consecutive day. Teens as young as 13 were seen on Dhaka's notoriously clogged roadways, checking whether cars and buses had valid licenses and were in a roadworthy condition. "We won't leave the roads until our demands are met. We want safe roads and safe drivers," said protester Al Miran. Abdur Rahim, a leader of the Bangladesh Road Transport Workers' Federation, said bus operators would stay off the streets until security improves. "We have invested a lot of money to do business. We can't let people burn our vehicles in the name of protests," he said. "We need our security, too." A smile and an insensitive comment fuel anger An insensitive comment by Shahjahan Khan, who has ties with powerful transport unions, only poured fuel into the fire earlier this week. Khan questioned why there was such an uproar over two children dying in Dhaka but no reaction to the 33 people killed in a bus crash in India the previous day. He was referring to the accident in Maharashtra's Raigad district, where a bus rolled down a deep gorge and killed nearly everyone on board. What made matters worse was that he had "smiles that would not go away", according to an article in the Dhaka Tribune. Several social media users expressed anger over Khan's statement as well as his facial expressions. Following are two such comments: The protests, completely spontaneous, began after a bus crushed two college kids to death on the airport road (opposite Radisson hotel). Protests were stoked when Shahjahan Khan, the labor leader and minister (yes, conflict of interest), laughed when reacting to the incident. — Mohammad Isam (@Isam84) August 2, 2018 Shahjahan Khan is watching the whole incident in the face of smile and smiling. The minister says, 'My new invention, population control'. The picture of a student, who was angry over the death of two students of — Mahfuja Parven (@parvenbd) August 1, 2018 There have been widespread demand over social media for the minister's resignation despite his subsequent apology. Protesters seek safer roads The protesters have been demanding safer roads in Bangladesh, where corruption is rife, making it easy for unlicensed drivers and unregistered vehicles to ply on the roads. At least 12,000 people die in the country every year in road accidents that are often blamed on faulty vehicles, reckless driving and lax traffic enforcement. According to the National Committee to Protect Shipping, Roads and Railways, a private research group, more than 4,200 pedestrians were killed in road accidents last year, a 25 percent increase from 2016. "They should have taken our demands seriously, but they didn't," Imran Ahmed, a protesting student, said. Saiyara Islam Roj, another protester, was quoted as saying by the BBC: "I am joining because I see how dangerous our roads are every day when I go out. All we want is corruption to be gone and driving licences to stop being handed out like candy." Buses are key to transportation in Bangladesh, where trains are overcrowded and most people cannot afford cars. Awami League blames Opposition The protests are an embarrassment for the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ahead of the general elections due in December. Hasina's party has been accusing the main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former prime minister Khaleda Zia and its main ally Jamaat-e-Islami, of using the sentiments of young students to create chaos for political gains. Zia's party has formally extended its support to the protesters.<doc-sep>Bangladesh’s capital has seen widespread student protests after two students were run over by a bus on Sunday. Students have set up blockades on major roads, vandalised cars and most uniquely are acting as a vigilante traffic police, checking the papers of vehicles on Dhaka’s streets in order to drive home the point that the authorities are not doing their job. ‘The law is the same for everyone’ Here’s a video of a group of belligerent students – most of them in their school uniforms – asking a bewildered cop for his license. The worried policemen – who did not have his papers – ends up apologising to the teens and asking to be let go. Play In another incident, a large group of students stopped a police van and forced it to go back, all the while chanting the Bengali equivalent of “f**k the police”. Incredibly, student groups even caught a minister driving on the wrong side of the road and forced him to turn back, belligerently lecturing him on how lawbreakers were bribing the police. Videos of a perplexed minister being told politely – he was addressed throughout as “sir”– but firmly by the teens, “the law is the same for everyone” have done the rounds frantically on social media. Facebook agitation Social media has played a large role in the protests with photos of police beating up students being spread around. Several of the photos shared are misleading, being taken from older, unrelated incidents. Laughing minister Public anger against the administration spiked after a minister appeared to laugh off the matter. The minister Shajahan Khan, compared the Sunday accident in Dhaka to one that occurred in Maharashtra on the previous day, arguing that the latter incident had barely caused any outrage in India. Khan met the families of the victims on Wednesday and apologised. Shajahan Khan imagined as the fictional supervillain, the Joker, who is often potrayed as having a manical laugh. These protests comes in the wake of agitations for quota reforms in April in which students from around Bangladesh hit the streets to demonstrate against reservations in the government bureaucracy. Unlike India’s caste reservations, reservations in Bangladesh were mostly for the privileged, being for the benefit of freedom fights and their descendants, a class that for the most part became the ruling elite of Bangladesh once the country gained freedom from Pakistan. In the end, the Bangladesh government buckled and announced an end to the quota system. In 2013, massive youth protests under the Shahbag movement rocked the country, demanding death sentences for people accused of committing war crimes during the country’s 1971 war of liberation as well as a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladeshi’s largest religious party.<doc-sep>Local journalists told the BBC they were among those beaten up by members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student organisation currently linked to the ruling Awami League and opposed to the protests.<doc-sep>
For the last week, students have brought parts of Dhaka to a standstill with a protest against poor road safety after two teenagers were killed by a speeding bus. Dhaka: More than 100 people were injured in Bangladesh on Saturday after police fired rubber bullets at students protesters, a doctor and witnesses said, a major escalation in a stand-off between the government and demonstrators. For the last week, students have brought parts of the capital Dhaka to a standstill with a protest against poor road safety after two teenagers were killed by a speeding bus. Bangladesh's transport sector is widely seen as corrupt, unregulated and dangerous, and as news of the teenagers' deaths spread rapidly on social media they became a catalyst for an outpouring of anger against the government. On Saturday, the protests took a violent turn in Dhaka's Jigatala locality. Witnesses said police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators and that alleged pro-government activists attacked youngsters, including some of those rushing to nearby hospitals for treatment. Police denied they fired rubber bullets or tear gas at the protesters. "It's not true. Nothing happened at Jigatola," Dhaka police spokesman Masudur Rahman said. However hospital staff said dozens of people had been injured, some seriously. "We have treated more than 115 injured students so far since the afternoon," said emergency ward doctor Abdus Shabbir, adding some sported injuries consistent with rubber bullets. "A few of them were in very bad condition." A protester said students were holding protests peacefully on the road when they were attacked. "We all are feeling threatened here. We wanted a peaceful protest. We don't want any trouble occurring around here. Yet rubber bullets were shot at our brothers," Sabbir Hossain, a student, said. Road Transport Minister Obaidul Quader rejected allegations that party cadres from the ruling Awami League party had attacked the students. He said the party office which was close to Jigatala was vandalised by some unidentified youths, dressed in school uniforms, moments before the clashes erupted. An AFP photographer at the scene of one the clashes saw students and unidentified young adult men fighting with sticks and rocks, leaving several wounded. Growing discontent The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009, but in recent months it has been shaken by mass protests demanding an end to a decades-old system of discriminatory civil service recruitment. Several powerful ministers have pleaded with students to return to their classes, amid worries the unprecedented teen outrage could turn into widespread anti-government protests ahead of general elections due later this year. But their pleas have had little effect. Earlier on Saturday, thousands of students wearing school uniforms defied rain to block major intersections in the capital for the seventh consecutive day. Teens as young as 13 were seen on Dhaka's notoriously clogged roadways checking whether cars and buses had valid licenses and were in a roadworthy condition. "We won't leave the roads until our demands are met. We want safe roads and safe drivers," said protester Al Miran. An insensitive comment by Shajahan Khan, a government minister with ties to powerful transport unions, only poured oil onto the fire earlier in the week. Khan questioned why there was such an uproar over the two Dhaka children but no reaction when 33 people were killed in an Indian bus crash the day before. There have been widespread social media demands for the minister's resignation despite his subsequent apology. The education ministry shut down high schools on Thursday in an effort to quell unrest, promising students their demands for road safety reforms would be considered. Dhaka suffers from daily gridlock but congestion has been exacerbated by blockades set up across the city since Sunday. The embassies of the US and Australia warned of significant delays and disruptions as a result of the protests across Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.