Nationwide student protests enter fifth day, causing government to shut down thousands of high schools

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Tens of thousands of students, many of them teenagers, have brought areas of Bangladesh to a near-standstill during five days of protests following the deaths of two teenagers 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 a massive outpouring of anger. Authorities have pleaded with students to call off the protests that have near-paralysed Dhaka and spread beyond the capital, with vehicles vandalised and clashes with police in some parts. The education ministry shut down high schools on Thursday in an effort to quell unrest, promising students their demands for reforms to road safety would be considered. The demonstrators, mostly students in their mid-teens, brought traffic to a standstill as they marched through the streets chanting “we want justice.”

Anger has not subdued since a bus racing for passengers killed a boy and girl on the roadside on Sunday, igniting the protests. Protesters are blaming the government for failing to enforce traffic laws, and an insensitive comment by Shajahan Khan, a government minister with ties to powerful transport unions, triggered fresh outrage. Shajahan Khan, a government minister with ties to powerful transport unions, also triggered fresh outrage when he 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 resignation of Khan, who later apologised for his comments.
Nationwide student protests following the deaths of two teenagers killed by a speeding bus enter their fifth day, causing the government to shut down thousands of high schools.