DHAKA: Clashes between Bangladeshi protesters demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's resignation and pro-government supporters killed at least eight people on Sunday, including with knife cuts and bullet wounds, police and medics said.
Three were killed in the northern Pabna district, two in the northern Rangpur district, two in the capital Dhaka's Munshiganj district and one in the western Magura district, police and hospital doctors told AFP.
Asif Mahmud, one of the key protest leaders in a national campaign of civil disobedience, called on supporters to be ready to fight.
“Prepare bamboo sticks and free Bangladesh,” he wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
While the military stepped in to help restore order following earlier protests, some ex-military officers have since joined the student movement, and former army chief General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan turned his profile picture red from Facebook in a show of support.
The current army chief, Waker-uz-Zaman, spoke to officers at the military headquarters in Dhaka on Saturday, telling them that “Bangladesh Army is the symbol of the people's trust”.
“He has always been with the people and will do so for the sake of the people and in any need of the state,” he said, according to an army statement issued late Saturday.
The statement did not provide further details and did not explicitly say whether the army supported the protests.
Rallies against civil service job quotas sparked days of chaos in July that killed more than 200 people in some of the worst unrest in Hasina's 15-year rule.
Troops briefly restored order, but crowds returned to the streets in large numbers this week in a total non-cooperation move aimed at bringing the government to a standstill.
On Saturday, when hundreds of thousands of protesters marched in Dhaka, the police were mostly bystanders watching the rallies.
Growing movement
The protests have turned into a wider anti-government movement across the South Asian nation of some 170 million people.
The grassroots movement includes people from all walks of life in Bangladesh, including film stars, musicians and singers, and rap songs calling for people's support have gone viral on social media.
“It's not about job quotas anymore,” said Sakhawat, a young protester who gave only one name, as she scrawled graffiti on a wall at a protest site in Dhaka, calling Hasina a “murderer “.
“What we want is for our next generation to be able to live freely in the country.”
Counter-protests in support of the government are also expected.
Obaidul Quader, general secretary of Hasina's ruling Awami League, called on party activists to gather in “all wards in Dhaka city” and “in every district” nationwide to show support for the government .
“We don't want to engage in any kind of confrontation,” Quader said.
The capital Dhaka was tense on Sunday, with fewer cars and buses on the normally busy streets of the mega-city of 20 million people.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters are expected to gather in Dhaka and nationwide.
Student protest
Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing the initial protests, called for rallies across the country.
The protests will take place at entry points into Dhaka, with the main rallies taking place in Shahbagh Square in central Dhaka, where crowds gathered on Sunday morning.
“We will hold our protests and rallies peacefully,” the group said in a statement late Saturday. “But if someone attacks us, we urge (everyone) to make all preparations.”
Students Against Discrimination asked compatriots to stop paying taxes and utility bills on Sunday to put pressure on the government.
They also called on government workers and workers in the country's economically vital garment factories to go on strike.
Hasina, 76, has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth straight election in January after a vote without real opposition.
Her government is accused by rights groups of abusing state institutions to consolidate power and suppress dissent, including by extrajudicially killing opposition activists.
Demonstrations began in early July over the reintroduction of the quota scheme, which reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups. This has since been reduced by the Bangladesh High Court.
