A new page in Bangladesh’s history

Bangladesh’s president dissolved parliament thus clearing the way for an interim government and new elections. The move came a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled following a violent crackdown on a student-led uprising.

President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s office also announced that the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Begum Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister had been freed from house arrest.

Student protesters had threatened more demonstrations if parliament was not dissolved.
The movement that toppled Hasina rose out of demonstrations against public sector job quotas
for families of veterans of Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war, seen by critics as a means to reserve jobs for allies of the ruling party.

About 300 people were killed and thousands injured in violence that ripped through the country since July, according to press agencies.

Traffic is still lighter than usual and many schools and businesses that shut during the unrest are still closed.

The student leaders said they want Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus as the chief adviser to the interim government and a spokesperson for Yunus said he had agreed.

Yunus, 84, and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace prize for work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans of under $100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh. He was indicted by a court in June on charges of embezzlement that he denied
.
He told Indian broadcaster Times Now in a recorded interview 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.
“India is our best friend…people are angry at India because you are supporting the person who destroyed our lives,” Yunus said.

Nahid Islam, a key organiser of the campaign against Hasina, said in a video message: “Any government other than the one we recommended would not be accepted.”

The student leaders also said that they had received reports of sectarian attacks on minority groups including Hindu temples in the Muslim-majority country, and urged restraint as this could undermine their movement.