Hundreds of government employees on Monday briefly locked the main gate of the Bangladesh secretariat, the heart of the administration in Dhaka, intensifying their protests against a new service law that allows fast-tracked dismissal of officials for misconduct.
Thousands of teachers in government primary schools also began an indefinite leave from work, demanding a wage hike. Civic workers in Dhaka started a protest seeking a mayor from the Opposition BNP, as Bangladesh seemed headed for another round of unrest and uncertainty after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government last August.
According to eyewitnesses and media reports, officials and employees of the secretariat, which houses ministries and important government offices, locked the main gate on the third day of their agitation against the Public Service Act amendment.
The protesting employees gathered near the main entrance and locked it around 12.30pm. "The gate was reopened after half an hour," a private TV channel reported.
The employees moved from the gate and gathered in a scattered way across the secretariat premises. Later, they vowed to continue the protest and urged their colleagues to launch a nationwide agitation.
According to the reports, official activities inside the complex were largely stalled.
The latest round of protests started after the interim government led by chief adviser Muhammad Yunus published the revised version of the service law, allowing faster dismissal of officials for misconduct.
The government employees threatened to continue the protests until the ordinance was scrapped. The authorities deployed extra policemen to enforce a vigil against any possible violence at the secretariat complex.
The protest by Dhaka South City Corporation employees, demanding the installation of BNP leader Ishraque Hossain as the mayor in line with a court order, brought administrative services at the civic body to a halt, bdnews24.com reported.
The election commission preferred not to oppose the verdict, but the interim government on Monday challenged the ruling in the high court to debar Hossain’s swearing-in and allow an administrator appointed by the administration to discharge the mayor’s duties.
A sense of unease has intensified in Bangladesh over the past few days amid protests in the civil administration and business sector over the interim government’s policies.
The apex Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries and other business chambers on Sunday convened a media conference to review the worrisome situation.
A prominent business community leader, Showkat Aziz Russell, told reporters that businessmen were being killed just like public intellectuals in the 1971 Liberation War. He warned of a famine-like situation as more people became jobless.
“We don’t know how we will pay bonuses and salaries to workers ahead of Eid-ul-Adha,” said Russell, president of the Bangladesh Textiles Mills Association.
“You are inviting foreigners to invest in the country... (but) foreigners know that investment in Bangladesh is not viable. They know Vietnam is more profitable than Bangladesh,” he added.
There had been reports of discord between the military and the interim government over the possible timeline for holding parliamentary elections and other policy issues related to Bangladesh’s security affairs, particularly involving a proposed humanitarian corridor of aid to Myanmar’s rebel-held Rakhine state.
The army chief, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, met Yunus along with the navy and air force chiefs last week and reportedly iterated their call for an election by December. They also conveyed their reservation about the
proposed corridor.
The next day, Gen. Zaman held a senior officers’ meeting at the Dhaka cantonment and said he was unaware of several strategic decisions of the government despite the military’s active role in the running of the country.
Not at odds: Army
However, Bangladesh Army’s operations director Brigadier General M. Nazim-ud-Daula said on Monday that the military was not at odds with the interim government but was determined to play its role in safeguarding the country’s independence
and sovereignty.
“We (the government and the army) are working to help each other. There is no scope to misinterpret it,” he told reporters.
He, however, added that there would be “no compromise when it comes to the country’s independence, security and sovereignty”.
Protesters warned
Hasnat Abdullah, a prominent leader of the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP) formed with Yunus’s blessings in February, warned the government employees against the protests, saying: “We will firmly resist it with the people’s support.”
Abdullah apparently referred to the protesters as collaborators of the deposed Hasina.
PTI and Reuters