At least 17 people died during clashes at protests across Bangladesh on Thursday, local media reported, as authorities blocked mobile services across most of the South Asian country.
Eleven people were killed in clashes with police in Dhaka, including a bus driver whose body was brought to a hospital with a bullet wound to his chest, and a student, police sources told Al Jazeera. Hundreds of others were wounded.
In Narayanganj, a city just southeast of Dhaka, two people were killed, according to police sources.
In Chittagong – officially known as Chattogram – in eastern Bangladesh, two more deaths were reported.
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up protesters who torched vehicles, police posts and other establishments in Dhaka, witnesses told the Reuters news agency.
Zunaid Ahmed Palak, the junior information technology minister, said mobile internet had been “temporarily suspended” owing to “various rumours” and the “unstable situation created” on social media.
Services would be restored once the situation returned to normal, he added.
Hours later, a number of Bangladeshi news websites appear to be down, including The Daily Star and Dhaka Tribune.
Two days earlier, internet providers had cut off access to Facebook – the protesters’ key organising tool.
Earlier, police fired tear gas canisters at students near BRAC University in the capital, Dhaka. Tear gas was also deployed against stone-throwing students who blocked a main highway in the southern port city of Chittagong.
“The situation is still volatile and restless,” said Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka. “We know the protests are spreading in different parts of the city and … I’ve got reports of protests in other parts of the country.”
The unrest continued after students called for a nationwide shutdown on Wednesday evening, with the support of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose headquarters have been raided by police.
Students have been demonstrating for weeks against a quota system for government jobs that they say favours supporters of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party, which led the country’s independence movement.
