By Shafiqul Alam

DHAKA – Bangladeshi Prime Minister vowed Wednesday (17) to punish those responsible for killing six people in ongoing student protests over civil service hiring rules, hours after police forcibly dispersed a funeral ceremony to mourn the dead.

Six people were killed Tuesday (15) in clashes around the country as rival student groups attacked each other with hurled bricks and bamboo rods, and police dispersed rallies with tear gas and rubber bullets.

The worst day of violence since demonstrations against public sector job quotas began this month prompted Hasina’s government to order the closure of schools and universities nationwide until further notice.

Hasina, whose administration is accused by protesters of misusing the quota scheme to stack coveted government jobs with loyalists, condemned the killings and insisted that perpetrators would be brought to justice.

“I condemn every murder,” she said in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday evening, after a day of clashes between police forces and demonstrators.

“I firmly declare that those who carried out murders, looting and violence – whoever they are – I will make sure they will be given the appropriate punishment.”

Her speech did not assign responsibility for Tuesday’s deaths, but descriptions from hospital authorities and students given to AFP earlier suggest at least some of the victims died when police fired non-lethal weapons to quell demonstrations.

Earlier around 500 protesters staged a public funeral ceremony at the capital’s prestigious Dhaka University, carrying six coffins draped with the red and green national flag to symbolise those killed the previous day.

But riot police had already cordoned off roads leading to the campus with barbed wire and stopped the procession with tear gas volleys and stun grenades soon after it began.

Students at the university had spent Tuesday night scouring dormitories and expelling pro-government classmates in what they said was a bid to end the violence.

Members of the student wing of Hasina’s ruling Awami League party had clashed with demonstrators over the previous two days, resulting in at least 400 injuries on Monday (15).

“When students were killed yesterday, it caused massive anger,” Dhaka University masters student Abdullah Mohammad Ruhel told AFP.

“It was like a domino effect. The female students started kicking out the Awami League students first, then the male dormitories followed.”

Others on campus told AFP that all members of the governing party’s youth wing had been ordered to leave their dorms, and those who refused were dragged out.

The government told every school and university in the country to shut indefinitely late Tuesday, soon after deploying paramilitary forces in several big cities to restore order.

Police later raided the headquarters of the country’s main opposition party in central Dhaka, arresting seven members of its student wing.

Detective branch chief Harun-or-Rashid told reporters that officers had found a cache of Molotov cocktails and other weapons at the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) offices.

Internet users around Bangladesh reported widespread outages of Facebook, the main platform used to organise the protests.

Online freedom watchdog Netblocks said “multiple internet providers” in Bangladesh had completely restricted access to the social media platform in the wake of Tuesday’s crackdown.

Protests nonetheless continued around the country on Wednesday, with police firing tear gas to disperse another demonstration blocking a highway outside Barisal, the southern city’s police commissioner Jehadul Kabir told AFP.

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

Near-daily marches this month have demanded an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country’s 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

“If you are a university student in today’s Bangladesh, you would know how dangerously uncertain your future is,” Asif Saleh, the director of one of Bangladesh’s largest charity BRAC, wrote on Facebook in response to the unrest.

“My inbox is flooded with requests seeking jobs. If I go to a village, fathers will tell me, ‘I spent so much to educate my son, but he can’t get work.'”

Rights watchdog Amnesty International and the US State Department have both condemned this week’s clashes and urged Hasina’s government not to crack down on peaceful demonstrators.

-AFP