At Least 50 Dead as Bangladesh Protests Grow; Curfew Is Reinstated

At least 50 people were killed in clashes between security forces and protesters on Sunday in Bangladesh, as the country’s leaders imposed a new curfew and internet restrictions to try to quell a growing antigovernment movement.

The revival of student protests after a deadly government crackdown late last month, as well as a call by the governing party for its own supporters to take to the streets, has plunged the country of over 170 million into a particularly dangerous phase.

The exact number of deaths in the violence on Sunday was unclear. A diplomatic official in Dhaka said the toll across Bangladesh was in the 60s, while tallies by local news media and a statement from the protest coordinators put the count at anywhere from 50 to 74. At least 13 of the dead were police officers, the country’s Police Headquarters said in a statement.

Sunday’s toll added to the more than 200 people killed in the crackdown on protesters last month by security forces under Bangladesh’s increasingly authoritarian leader, Sheikh Hasina. In a sign of the risk of further violence, the protest coordinators said they would march toward Ms. Hasina’s official residence on Monday.

Over the weekend, the tensions flared into the kind of localized clashes across the country that appeared difficult to contain. With the public already angry at the police forces, seeing them as an overzealous extension of Ms. Hasina’s entrenched authority, attention focused on Bangladesh’s powerful military.

Ms. Hasina has worked to bring the military to heel. But it has a history of staging coups and was being watched for how it positions itself in the escalating crisis.