Police fire tear gas as Bangladesh protests against job quotas rage

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vows to punish those responsible deaths of six people at protests.

Police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse students protesting against the Bangladesh government’s job quota system in the capital, Dhaka, as authorities ordered the closure of all public and private universities for an indefinite period.

On Wednesday, authorities deployed units of the paramilitary Border Guard force alongside riot police outside the University of Dhaka campus as students chanted: “We will not let our brothers’ blood go in vain”.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and lobbed sound grenades at the students as they marched in processions carrying coffins in solidarity with those killed, Nahid Islam, the coordinator of the anti-quota protests, told the news agency Reuters.

“Our protests will also continue no matter how much violence they can unleash on us,” University of Dhaka student Chamon Fariya Islam told the AFP news agency.

The job quotas, which include a 30 percent reservation for family members of fighters from the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, have caused anger among students who say the system benefits children of pro-government groups who back Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who won her fourth consecutive term in a general election in January that was boycotted by the opposition.

Students also say the quotas won’t fix high youth unemployment rates in the country, with nearly 32 million young Bangladeshis not in work or education out of a total population of 170 million people.

Demonstrations intensified and turned violent after Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, refused to meet the protesters’ demands. She