Students who ousted Hasina are helping lead Bangladesh, from the streets to the ministries

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Within a week of unseating Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister, the students who drove out Sheikh Hasina were directing Dhaka’s traffic.

Decked out in neon vests, their university IDs slung around their necks, they clutch sticks and umbrellas to wave cars this way and that, filling the void after police went on strike. They stopped drivers, checking their licenses and telling them off for not wearing their seatbelts. Some opened trunks of cars they deemed could belong to officials from the previous government, looking for smuggled riches.

Students have not only manned roads, two who led the charge against Hasina are settling into the interim government they ushered in just a few days after she resigned and fled to India in a military helicopter.

Before Hasina was toppled by the student movement with astonishing speed, she was seen as one of the country’s most unshakeable leaders. In total, she governed for more than 20 years, most recently winning four straight terms as her rule became ever more autocratic.

The question now is what comes next in a country still reeling from the violence surrounding her removal that left hundreds dead. The students hope they can restore peace and democracy and create a “new Bangladesh,” said Asif Mahmud, one of the protest leaders now in charge of the Sports and Youth Ministry.

“We’ve got a big responsibility,” he said. “We never thought, never had an ambition, that we would take such a responsibility at this age.”

“There is pressure, but confidence is also there,” said 26-year-old Mahmud.

The student-led protests began with a demand to abolish a quota system for government jobs they said favored Hasina’s allies but coalesced into a full-scale revolt