The Awami League has fiercely criticised Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, for what it described as a brutal suppression of anti-government protests following the recent plane crash tragedy in Dhaka.
Local media reports say police action injured at least 75 students, who received treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
On Tuesday, large-scale demonstrations broke out at the crash site and outside the Secretariat in the capital.
Students demanded the immediate resignation of the Education Advisor and Education Secretary of the interim administration.
The crash has claimed 32 lives so far, many of them children, and left over 165 injured.
During a site visit to the affected institute, Yunus’s Law and Education Advisors, along with his Press Secretary, faced strong resistance from students who accused the government of providing false information about the tragedy and called for their resignations.
In a statement issued Tuesday, the Awami League noted, “A wave of systematic torture, deceit and suppression, meticulously inflicted on the students, teachers, parents and staffers by the regime since a fighter jet crashed into Milestone school and college. In the last twenty-four hours, from concealing casualty toll to unleashing law enforcement and applying sound grenades, tear shells, and live bullets on students, teachers and parents, the regime exposed its complete failure to deliver on the welfare of the nation at the time of national crisis.”
“Instead of maintaining transparency over the casualty toll, the regime unleashed law enforcement to suppress protesters in its desperate bid to keep the nation in the dark. For their repeated pleas for revealing the causality list, grief-stricken students, parents and teachers, attacked by cops with total disregard for human rights, pushing the families and fellow students into further trauma,” the statement further asserted.
Loss of Public Trust in the Yunus Regime
The party noted that the massive turnout of students, teachers, and parents demanding the removal of advisors reflects a complete loss of public trust in the Yunus regime.
“A sense of public anger became palpable when two advisors and the press secretary of the Yunus regime, rejected outright by students, teachers and parents of the school during their visit to the crash site to rule out witness accounts on the death toll as disinformation,” the Awami League added.
The statement further denounced the use of heavy-handed policing at multiple locations, including Milestone College, describing it as a gross violation of human rights and a display of state force during a time of national mourning.
“We condemn this attack in the strongest terms, which sparked countrywide protests. On the medical front, patients were barred from entering hospitals while leaders from political parties and advisors were allowed to go inside the hospital and conduct photo ops with victims, a barbaric show of scoring political points even at the cost of disrupting medical services,” the party stated.
Highlighting the breakdown of law and order, the Awami League alleged that blood donors and journalists, also targeted, beaten, harassed, and barred from sharing information about the crash’s aftermath.
Calling for international attention, the party appealed to the global community to speak out against what it called a ‘brutal wave of repression’ and to support those demanding justice and accountability in Bangladesh.
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