The president of Bangladesh has dissolved the country’s parliament after an ultimatum issued by the coordinators of student protests that forced the resignation on Monday of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.
The office of the president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, also announced that the former prime minister and opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia had been officially released from prison and given a full presidential pardon.
The army chief, Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman, said the military would form an interim government after Hasina’s departure. Later on Tuesday evening, a 13-strong student delegation with two University of Dhaka professors went to Shahabuddin’s residence to meet Zaman and other military leaders. After almost two hours of discussions, Nahid Islam, one of the student leaders, emerged to tell waiting reporters that there had been an agreement between all parties that Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus would be chief adviser to the interim government and that talks would continue.
The president also issued a statement stressing the urgency to find agreement on the members of a new government and asked citizens to all cooperate in overcoming this “critical period” for Bangladesh. A curfew has been imposed in the region along the country’s border with India. Yunus, one of Bangladesh’s best-respected citizens, told Indian media that “today should be about celebration”. He played down any fears over instability in Bangladesh and called the ridding of Hasina “a revolution”.
“We got rid of a very authoritarian government,” he told NDTV. “We are enjoying it, we are enjoying our freedom and a new era is opening for Bangladesh.”
On Monday, Hasina resigned and fled the country after at least 300 people were killed in a crackdown on demonstrations that began as student protests against preferential job quotas and swelled into a movement demanding her downfall.
Celebrations erupted on Monday after Hasina resigned, and continued overnight. There was looting and several of the ruling party’s offices and some police stations were set alight.
Reports suggested calm had returned to the streets on Tuesday and many citizens were helping in the clear-up or congregating in peaceful gatherings around the capital, Dhaka, and other towns and cities. There was a “holiday-like” atmosphere around the recently vacated prime minister’s residence, according to one witness who said people were wandering around the house and grounds and were seen carrying off everything from furniture to the catfish and a duck from the pond in the grounds where Hasina had been keen on fishing.
Zaman also held talks with leaders of leading political parties – excluding Hasina’s long-ruling Awami League – to discuss the way ahead.
An interim government would hold elections as soon as possible after consulting all parties and stakeholders, Shahabuddin said in a televised address late on Monday.
He said the release of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) chair and Hasina’s rival, Zia, 78, who was convicted in a graft case in 2018 but moved to a hospital a year later as her health deteriorated, was “unanimously decided”. She has denied the charges against her. Other opposition figures and journalists are also being released.
Early on Tuesday, there were international commendations for the Bangladesh army’s conduct. A US White House spokesperson said: “The United States has long called for respecting democratic rights in Bangladesh, and we urge that the interim government formation be democratic and inclusive. We commend the army for the restraint they have showed today.”
The US Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said the interim government must aim to set up swift democratic elections. “PM Hasina’s violent reaction to legitimate protests made her continued rule untenable. I applaud the brave protesters and demand justice for those killed.”
In the UK, the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, called for a full UN investigation into the killings.
Hasina won a fifth term in January in an election boycotted by the opposition and called out as not free and fair by international observers.
Her government was accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including through the killing of opposition activists and the disappearance and detention of journalists.
The latest protests began over a quota system students said disproportionately allocated government jobs to the descendants of freedom fighters from the 1971 independence war.
The resulting crackdown led to the worst violence since Bangladesh was founded. During a briefing at army headquarters, Zaman promised an investigation into the deaths.
Yunus, who was in Paris, planned to return to Bangladesh “immediately” after undergoing a minor medical procedure in the French capital.
The 84-year-old won the 2006 Nobel peace prize for the not-for-profit Grameen Bank he founded in 1983 and its work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans of under $100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh. In January, Yunus was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, along with three other people, for violating labour laws at Grameen Telecom. In June he was indicted by a court on charges of embezzlement that he denied.
In June, Yunus told the Guardian he had had 20 years of pressure from the Bangladeshi government for his work, which is credited with improving the lives of millions of poor people, particularly women.
The World Bank, among the first development partners to support Bangladesh after its independence and which has committed about $41bn (£31bn) in grants and interest-free credits, said it was assessing events but remained committed to supporting the “development aspirations of the people”.
The World Bank’s board in June approved two projects totalling $900m (£700) to help Bangladesh strengthen financial sector policies and improve infrastructure.
