Bangladesh’s prime minister resigned and fled the country on Monday, as thousands of protesters stormed and ransacked her official residence after weeks of deadly demonstrations against her government.
A plane carrying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina landed at a military airfield near New Delhi, India, on Monday, after Hasina was seen departing Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, in a Bangladeshi Air Force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, India’s ANI news agency reported. General Waker uz Zaman, the head of Bangladesh’s army, announced Hasina’s resignation in a televised address to the nation and declared that an interim government would be formed by the military after consultation with major political parties and the country’s largely ceremonial president.
“There is a crisis in the country. I have met opposition leaders and we have decided to form an interim government to run this country,” Zaman said in his address. “I take all responsibility and promise to protect your life and property. Your demands will be fulfilled. Please support us and stop violence.”
As Hasina was fleeing Bangladesh, protesters ransacked Ganabhaban, the official prime ministerial residence, as well as the Hasina family’s ancestral home, her previous personal residence in Dhaka, and the national parliament building. Protesters at Hasina’s official residence could be seen stealing furniture, housewares, and even taking food from refrigerators, the Associated Press reported.
Hasina’s resignation comes after a student-led movement, which began in July as a campaign of peaceful protests against a quota system for coveted government jobs that many viewed as favoring those with connections to Hasina’s dominant Bangladesh Awami League Party, quickly transformed into a broader and more violent uprising against Hasina’s 15-year rule. Government security forces used force in an attempt to quell the demonstrations, leaving almost 300 people dead since demonstrations began. On Sunday, the deadliest day of demonstrations, nearly 100 people were reported to have been killed in violent clashes between protesters and security forces.
The protest movement continued in earnest despite a ruling last month by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court that the quota system, which reserves 30 percent of government jobs for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence against Pakistan, must be significantly scaled back. The residence of the chief justice of the supreme court was also ransacked on Sunday by protesters.
Indian and Bangladeshi news outlets reported that Hasina plans to leave India shortly and continue traveling to London, where she has family. It is unclear whether Hasina — whom critics accused of governing with authoritarian tactics, persecuting dissenters and political opponents, and turning Bangladesh into a de facto one-party state — will seek to return to Bangladesh or maintain control over the Awami League, which commands an overwhelming majority in the country’s parliament. Demonstrators throughout the country targeted the party’s offices with vandalism and arson beginning on Sunday.
Hasina, who until her resignation was the world’s longest-serving female head of government, claimed to have secured a fourth consecutive term in a controversial January election that was boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and widely criticized — including by the governments of the United States and Great Britain — as not free and fair. Thousands of opposition leaders and supporters were arrested and imprisoned in the run-up to the election, and the government-aligned national election commission was accused of dramatically inflating voter turnout numbers.