Parliament dissolved, Yunus to lead Bangladesh interim govt

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Nobel-winning microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus has been tapped to lead an interim government after the ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, the country’s presidency announced early Wednesday.

The decision “to form an interim government with... Yunus as its chief” was taken at a meeting of President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders and the heads of the Students Against Discrimination group, Shahabuddin’s press office said.

Microfinance pioneer Yunus, 84, is credited with lifting millions out of poverty -- earning the enmity of ousted Hasina and the wide respect of millions of Bangladeshis. “If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, then I will take it,” he told AFP in a statement, also calling for “free elections,” after student leaders called for him to lead an interim government. He told Indian broadcaster Times Now that Monday marked the “second liberation day” for Bangladesh after its 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. But he said Bangladeshis were angry with neighbour India for allowing Hasina to land there after fleeing Dhaka.

Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced Monday the military would form an interim government, saying it was “time to stop the violence”. The president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, a key demand of the student leaders and the major opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP), which has demanded elections within three months.

The military on Tuesday reshuffled several top generals, demoting some seen as close to Hasina, and sacking Ziaul Ahsan, a commander of the feared and US-sanctioned Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary force. Further changes include Lt-Gen Md Saiful Alam, who has been reassigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile, Lt-Gen Mizanur Rahman Shamim has been appointed chief of general staff of the army. Lt-Gen Mujibur Rahman will now serve as General Officer Commanding of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, and Lt-Gen Ahmed Tabrez Shams Chowdhury has been designated Quarter Master General. Additionally, Lt-Gen Mohammad Shaheenul Haque has been appointed commandant of the National Defence College. Major General Ziaul Ahsan, previously the director general of the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre, has been relieved of his duties and succeeded by Major General ASM Ridwanur Rahman.

Ex-prime minister and BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, 78, was also released from years of house arrest, a presidential statement and her party said. Streets in the capital were largely peaceful on Tuesday -- with traffic resuming, shops opening and international flights resuming at Dhaka’s airport -- but government offices were mainly closed a day after chaotic violence in which at least 122 people were killed. Garment factories, which supply apparel to some of the world’s top brands and are a mainstay of the economy, will reopen on Wednesday.

Police said mobs had launched revenge attacks on Hasina’s allies and their own officers, as well as broke into a prison, releasing more than 500 inmates. Key police unions said their members had declared a strike “until the security of every member of the police is secured”, offering their “apology” for police actions against the protesters. Monday was the deadliest day since protests began in early July, with a further 10 people killed on Tuesday, taking the total toll overall to at least 432, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials and doctors at hospitals.

Bangladeshi rights groups, as well as US and European Union diplomats, said Tuesday they were “very concerned” about reports of attacks on religious, ethnic and other minority groups. Key regional allies of Bangladesh, neighbouring India and China, both called for calm on Tuesday.

Mothers of some of the hundreds of political prisoners secretly jailed under Hasina’s rule waited outside a military intelligence building in Dhaka on Tuesday. “We need answers,” said campaigner Sanjida Islam Tulee.

The fate of Hasina, now in India, is also uncertain. A source had said she wanted to go to London but calls by the British government for a UN-led investigation into the “unprecedented” violence put that in doubt.