
The government and student protesters both wanted quota reformation. Then why did the protest turn violent?

Mohammad A. Arafat
The government and student protesters both wanted quota reformation. Then why did the protest turn violent? It was Sheikh Hasina’s government that abolished quotas in 2018. When in July 2024, the High Court overturned the quota abolition, it sparked new protests. Initially, the protests appeared peaceful. In solidarity with the protest, the government again appealed to the Supreme Court (SC) against the High Court ruling. Not only that, at the request of the government, the SC suspended the HC ruling until the appeal hearing, which effectively reinstated the government’s anti-quota stance. Authorities urged protesters to await the SC’s final verdict, originally set for August 7, 2024, as the government cannot intervene in matters pending before the highest court of the land. Even the Chief Justice encouraged students to return to classes and present their arguments in court. Government ministers publicly called for dialogue. Responding to the urgency, the government petitioned to advance the SC hearing date, rescheduling it to July 21, significantly earlier than the original August 7 date. The government and students were on the same page, working towards the same goal. Yet, the protests suddenly turned violent. The scale and brutality of the violence were unprecedented. Bangladesh witnessed its first-ever staged jailbreak as thousands of attackers descended upon Narsingdi district prison, leading to the escape of 826 prisoners, including nine high-level jihadist terrorists. Attackers looted firearms, ammunition, and took 160 prison staff hostages. Is such an ISIS-like attack conceivable for a typical student demonstration? The violence spread nationwide, targeting police and government installations. 235 police facilities were damaged, with 69 outposts destroyed. Three policemen were killed, and 1,117 injured, with 132 in critical condition. One officer was brutally beaten to death and hanged from a pole. His lifeless body was then subjected to a hail of projectiles. In Rampura, the assailants hunted down and trapped policemen in a building like prey. The situation grew so dire that only an airlift could extract them from certain death. Hundreds of critical Infrastructures, including metro rail stations, express highways, the National Data Center, the national television station, were destroyed. Awami League-affiliated students also became targets. Some of them were thrown from rooftops. Others, desperately clinging to life on building ledges, had their fingers crushed by rocks, forcing them to plummet to the ground below. One thing became crystal clear – this was no spontaneous outburst by innocent protesters. The level of coordination, the targeting of strategic installations, and the sheer scale of the violence bore the hallmarks of well-planned terrorist attacks. The roots of this violence can be traced back to 2013 when Islami Chatro Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-E-Islami, first raised objections to freedom fighters’ quotas. While the 2018 and 2024 movements were led by general students, Shibir, Jamaat, and their ally, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had vested interests in the outcome. Leaders of BNP and its student wing publicly confirmed their covert participation in the 2024 movement. They used social media and the aggressive nature of student politics to drive a wedge between the government and students. The infiltration of Jamat-BNP terrorists became so evident that protest leaders issued multiple condemnations, distanced themselves from the violence, and warned against those using their movement as cover.
