AFP Hospital staff said the students were taken by Bangladesh police forces out of the hospital to an undisclosed place in Dhaka on Friday. Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder, who are members of Students Against Discrimination group, were reportedly “police tortured” during their custody at hospital.
According to Islam, two days before the incident, a group of people claiming to be police detectives kidnapped him. Mahmoud had told AFP earlier that last week when violence was at its peak he was also shot dead and physically assaulted by the police. On Friday however three senior officers in Dhaka denied taking them away from the hospital and arresting them.
The demonstrations led to deadly riots and a police crackdown after student leaders organized street rallies against civil service recruitment rules. They took our children away,” Anwara Begum Lucky said, Director of Gonoshastaya Hospital. Additionally, she noted interventions by the police for the discharge of the patient by the director of hospital student leaders.
Last week’s disturbances have resulted in over four thousand detainees among them two thousand five hundred in Dhaka alone” (AFP). Protests erupted after Job Retention Scheme was reintroduced in June which did not go well with graduates as 18 million young persons find themselves jobless. The death toll is above 200 people so far.
On July 21st , Bangladesh Supreme Court delivered its verdict restricting controversial quota system pertaining to public servants. This ruling made Sunday presents narrower scope for it but without totally scrapping it off. It came subsequent to last month’s re-introduction of a quota system which caused nationwide deadly civil unrests across Bangladesh’s soil.
