Protesters set fire to several government buildings as well as vehicles along the streets, a police statement said
\nDHAKA
\nAt least 104 police officers and 30 journalists were injured in Bangladesh during a day of violent clashes around the country, private broadcaster Independent Television reported.
\nThe network said 702 people were injured during Thursday\u2019s confrontations between police and student protesters, with clashes in 26 of the country\u2019s 64 districts.
\nProtesters set fire to several government buildings as well as vehicles along the streets, a police statement said.
\n\u201cThe miscreants have already torched, vandalized and carried out destructive activities,\u201d on the offices of state broadcaster BTV and the national disaster management agency along with \u201cvarious\u201d police and government buildings, said the statetment, issued after a nationwide Internet shutdown Thursday night.
\nThe statement was issued late Thursday after the imposition of a nationwide Internet shutdown that cut off Bangladesh\u2019s lines of communication with the outside world.
\n\u201cSo far, we have shown maximum restraint,\u201d police said, adding if the destructive activities continued, they would \u201cbe forced to make maximum use of law.\u201d
\nThirty-nine people have died this week in the clashes, sparked by student protests over civil service hiring rules, with 32 killed Thursday in the deadliest day of unrest so far.
\nPrivate broadcaster Independent Television said 702 people had been injured during Thursday\u2019s clashes including 104 police officers and 30 journalists.
\nAt least 26 of the country\u2019s 64 districts saw clashes on Thursday, the network said.
\nOn Friday, telecommunications remained widely disrupted across the nation, Reuters witnesses in Dhaka and New Delhi said.
\nTelephone calls from overseas were mostly not getting connected and calls through the Internet could not be completed.
\nWeb sites of several Bangladesh-based newspapers were not updating on Friday morning and their social media handles were also not active.
\nOnly some voice calls were working in the country and there was no mobile data or broadband on Friday morning, a Reuters photographer in Dhaka said. Even SMSes or mobile-to-mobile text messages were not going through, he added.
\nThe nationwide agitation, the biggest since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was re-elected earlier this year, has been fueled by high youth unemployment. Nearly a fifth of the country\u2019s 170 million population is out of work or education.
\nProtesters are demanding the state stop setting aside 30 percent of government jobs for the families of people who fought in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
\nHasina\u2019s government had scrapped the quota system in 2018, but a high court reinstated it last month. The government appealed against the verdict and the Supreme Court suspended the high court order, pending hearing the government\u2019s appeal on Aug. 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protesters set fire to several government buildings as well as vehicles along the streets, a police statement said DHAKA At least 104 police officers and 30 journalists were injured in Bangladesh during a day of violent clashes around the country, private broadcaster Independent Television reported. The network said 702 people were injured during Thursday\u2019s confrontations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-419339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n