Dhaka:
Bangladesh's Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus said Tuesday he is ready to lead an interim government, a day after the military seized power after mass protests forced longtime ruler Sheikh Hasina to flee.
Microfinance pioneer Yunus, 84, is praised for lifting millions out of poverty, earning the enmity of ousted Hasina and the deep respect of millions of Bangladeshis.
“If there is a need for action in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, I will do it,” he told AFP in a statement, also calling for “free elections” after student leaders called on him to lead an interim government.
Hasina, 76, has been in power since 2009 but was accused of rigging elections in January, only to see millions take to the streets last month to demand her resign.
Hundreds of people were killed as security forces tried to quell the unrest, but protests grew and Hasina eventually fled by helicopter on Monday after the military turned against her.
Army chief Gen. Waker-Uz-Zaman announced Monday that the military would form an interim government, saying it was “time to stop the violence.”
The president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, a key demand of student leaders and the main opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP), which is demanding elections within three months.
'We trust Dr. Yunus'
“We trust Dr. Yunus,” Asif Mahmud, a senior leader of the group Students Against Discrimination (SAD), wrote on Facebook.
The military on Tuesday reshuffled a number of top generals, demoting some close to Hasina and sacking Ziaul Ahsan, a commander of the feared US-sanctioned paramilitary force Rapid Action Battalion.
Former prime minister and BNP chairwoman Khaleda Zia, 78, has also been released after years of house arrest, a presidential statement and her party said.
The capital’s streets were largely calm on Tuesday as traffic resumed, shops reopened and international flights resumed at Dhaka airport. However, government offices remained largely closed, a day after chaotic violence left at least 122 people dead.
Millions of Bengalis took to the streets of Dhaka on Monday to celebrate Waker's announcement, with jubilant people also storming and looting Hasina's official residence.
“We have been liberated from a dictatorship,” said Sazid Ahnaf, 21, who compared the events to the war of independence that split the country from Pakistan more than 50 years ago.
Deadliest day
Police said gangs carried out revenge attacks on Hasina's allies and their own officers, and broke into a prison and freed more than 500 inmates.
Monday was the deadliest day since protests began in early July. Another 10 people were killed on Tuesday, bringing the total death toll to at least 432, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials and hospital doctors.
Protesters broke into parliament and set fire to television stations. Others destroyed statues of Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the independence hero of Bangladesh.
Several businesses and homes owned by Hindus, a group believed by some in the Muslim-majority country to be closely linked to Hasina, were also attacked.
Bangladeshi human rights groups and diplomats from the US and European Union said on Tuesday they were “deeply concerned” about reports of attacks on religious, ethnic and other minority groups.
Major police unions said their members had called a strike “until the safety of all police officers is guaranteed” and “apologised” for the police crackdown on protesters.
Key regional allies Bangladesh, neighbours India and China both called for calm on Tuesday.
China hopes that “social stability in Bangladesh can be restored soon”, the foreign ministry in Beijing said on Tuesday, while Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said he was “deeply concerned until law and order is visibly restored”.
Political prisoners released
The unrest began last month with protests over civil service quotas and escalated into broader calls for Hasina to step down.
Human rights groups accused her government of abusing state institutions to consolidate power and suppress dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.
Mothers of some of the hundreds of political prisoners secretly held under Hasina's rule waited outside a military intelligence building in Dhaka on Tuesday.
“We need answers,” said campaigner Sanjida Islam Tulee.
The fate of Hasina, who is now in India, is also uncertain.
A source had said she wanted to go to London, but calls from the British government for a UN-led investigation into the “unprecedented” violence have cast doubt on that.
Thomas Kean of the International Crisis Group said the new authorities faced a huge challenge.
“The interim government that now takes over… must begin the long task of rebuilding democracy in Bangladesh, which has been so badly eroded in recent years,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published via a syndicated feed.)