Yunus touched down in Dhaka on a flight from Paris via Dubai and could be sworn in as the country\u2019s new leader
\n Dhaka
\nNobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus returned to Bangladesh on Thursday to lead a caretaker government after a student-led uprising ended the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina.
\nYunus touched down in Dhaka on a flight from Paris via Dubai shortly after 2:00 pm (0800 GMT) and could be sworn in as the country\u2019s new leader as soon as Thursday evening to begin what the army chief has vowed will be a \u201cbeautiful democratic process\u201d.
\nThe prospect of Yunus, 84, standing alongside military leaders was almost unimaginable a week ago, when security forces fired deadly rounds at protesters who took to the streets demanding that Hasina resign.
\nBut the military turned on Hasina at the weekend and she was forced to flee to neighbouring India \u2014 as millions of Bangladeshis celebrated her demise.
\nThe military then agreed to student demands that Yunus \u2014 who won the Nobel in 2006 for his pioneering microfinancing work \u2014 lead an interim government.
\n\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to going back home, see what\u2019s happening and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble we are in,\u201d Yunus told reporters in Paris as he left for Dhaka.
\nThe veteran academic had travelled abroad this year while on bail after being sentenced to six months in jail on a charge condemned as politically motivated, and which a Dhaka court on Wednesday acquitted him of.
\nYunus was hit with more than 100 criminal cases and a smear campaign by a state-led Islamic agency that accused him of promoting homosexuality, with courts accused of rubber-stamping decisions by ousted Hasina\u2019s government.
\nArmy chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman said he backs Yunus and hoped he will be sworn in to lead the interim government on Thursday evening.
\n\u201cI am certain that he will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process,\u201d Waker said.
\nYunus said he wanted to hold elections \u201cwithin a few\u201d months. Few other details about the planned government have been released, including the role of the military. But Bangladeshis voiced hope as they joined a rally in Dhaka on Wednesday for the former opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP).
\n\u201cI expect that a national government will be formed with everyone\u2019s consent in a beautiful way,\u201d Moynul Islam Pintu told AFP. \u201cI expect that the country is run in a nice way, and the police force is reformed so that they can\u2019t harass people.\u201d Hasina, 76, who had been in power since 2009, quit on Monday as hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Dhaka. Jubilant crowds later stormed and looted her palace.
\nMonday\u2019s events were the culmination of more than a month of unrest, which began as protests against a plan for quotas in government jobs but morphed into an anti-Hasina movement.
\nHasina, who was accused of rigging January elections and widespread human rights abuses, deployed security forces to quash the protests.
\nAt least 455 people were killed in the unrest, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials and hospital doctors.
\n\u201cThe protests are a seismic moment in Bangladesh history,\u201d said International Crisis Group analyst Thomas Kean.
\n\u201cThe country really had been at risk of becoming a one party state, and through a peaceful street-based movement led by, Gen Z students in their 20s, they\u2019ve managed to force her from power.\u201d The military\u2019s switching of allegiance was the decisive factor in her demise. It has since acceded to a range of other demands from the student leaders. The president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, a key demand of the students and the BNP.
\nThe head of the police force, which protesters have blamed for leading Hasina\u2019s crackdown, was sacked on Tuesday.
\nThe new chief, Mainul Islam, offered an apology on Wednesday for the conduct of officers and vowed a \u201cfair and impartial investigation\u201d into the killings of \u201cstudents, common people and the police\u201d. Ex-prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, 78, was also released from years of house arrest, while some political prisoners were freed. The military has demoted some generals seen as close to Hasina and sacked Ziaul Ahsan, a commander of the feared Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force.
\nPolice said mobs had launched revenge attacks on officers and Hasina\u2019s allies, and also freed more than 500 inmates from a prison. Protesters broke into parliament and torched TV stations. Others smashed statues of Hasina\u2019s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country\u2019s independence hero. Since Tuesday, however, streets in the capital have been largely peaceful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yunus touched down in Dhaka on a flight from Paris via Dubai and could be sworn in as the country\u2019s new leader Dhaka Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus returned to Bangladesh on Thursday to lead a caretaker government after a student-led uprising ended the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina. Yunus touched down in Dhaka […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-423747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n