Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stepped down from her position on Monday amid ongoing unrest in the country, according to officials from Bangladesh’s High Commission in New Delhi. Reports from Bangladesh’s Daily Prothom Alo suggest that the Prime Minister, along with her younger sister, is is allegedly travelling to India for a safe shelter.
However, there was no official confirmation about her quitting and leaving Dhaka.
Today around 2:30 pm, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left Ganabhaban, the official residence, in an army helicopter, accompanied by her younger sister, Sheikh Rehana, and is reportedly heading towards West Bengal,” according to Prothom Alo, which cited sources. The report also mentioned that Hasina wanted to record an address to the nation but was unable to do so. The anti-government movement in Bangladesh, a country of about 170 million people, has gained support from various public figures, including film stars, musicians, and singers. Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power since 2009, secured her fourth consecutive term in January through an election criticized for lacking genuine opposition. Her government faces accusations from rights groups of abusing state institutions to consolidate power and suppress dissent, including through extrajudicial killings of opposition activists.
The protests, initially sparked by the reintroduction of a quota scheme reserving over half of government jobs for certain groups, have continued despite the scheme being scaled back by the top court. PM Hasina, 76, initially claimed that students were not involved in the violence during the quota protests, attributing the clashes and arson to the Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). However, after renewed violence on Sunday, Hasina stated that “those who are carrying out violence are not students but terrorists who are out to destabilize the nation.” The student group has rejected Hasina’s offer for talks to resolve the crisis.