Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Resigns and Flees Country Amid Deadly Protests

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned and fled the country after weeks of deadly anti-government protests. According to officials at the Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi and a Bangladesh Army source, she left the capital for a “place of safety.”

Local media report that thousands of people have entered the prime minister’s residence. Military chief Waker-Uz-Zaman is expected to address the nation shortly as hundreds of thousands of protesters take to the streets of Dhaka.

Student activists had called for a march to the capital Dhaka on Monday, defying a nationwide curfew to press Hasina to resign. This came a day after deadly clashes across the country killed nearly 100 people. As protesters began to march in some places, armored personnel carriers and troops patrolled the streets of the capital, Reuters TV showed. Civilian traffic was minimal, with only a few motorcycles and three-wheel taxis visible.

The Daily Star newspaper reported that at least six people were killed in clashes between police and protesters in the Jatrabari and Dhaka Medical College areas on Monday, although Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Police hurled sound grenades in some parts of the city to disperse small groups of protesters, as reported by the Bengali language Prothom Alo newspaper.

Bangladesh has been engulfed by protests and violence that began last month after student groups demanded the scrapping of a controversial quota system in government jobs. The protests escalated into a campaign seeking the ouster of Hasina, who won a fourth straight term in January in an election boycotted by the opposition.

At least 91 people were killed and hundreds injured on Sunday as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse tens of thousands of protesters in a wave of violence across the country of 170 million people.

A nationwide curfew has been imposed since Sunday evening, with railway services suspended and the country’s vast garments industry shut down.