Students continue street protests for fifth day

Student protesters have returned to the streets in Dhaka for the fifth straight day braving rains and demanding safe roads.

As student protests intensified, the government shut schools, colleges and other educational institutions for Thursday for security reasons.

They demonstrated in at least 20 locations across Dhaka, disrupting traffic since morning, according to the traffic police control room.

Transport owners have also taken buses off the roads in Dhaka, bringing troubles to morning commuters.

Students, mostly from Dhaka schools and colleges, poured on the streets since a speeding bus ran over and killed two of their fellows waiting for transport on Jul 29.

Protests have spread to other cities too, over the last two days.

Amid raging protests by students against deadly road accidents, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid on Wednesday ordered all educational institutions shut citing security reasons, and called for calm.

Several parents and guardians have said they received texts from school authorities that if children take part in protests on Thursday, they will be ousted from the institutes.

A Facebook group urged students to stay on the streets defying the restrictions. Accordingly, after 10am on Thursday, students from different areas poured back into the streets.

VANDALISM

Two buses on the Mymensingh route near the Tongi College gate were vandalised in the morning.

Students from different areas, including Mohakhali, Moghbazar, Shahbagh, Rampura, Farmgate, Asadgate, Khilgaon, Malibagh and Shantinagar, descended on the streets.

They stopped vehicles and checked driving licences. Police vehicles were not spared either, bdnews24.com’s correspondents reported.

Most of the demonstrators wore school uniforms to the protests. They were seen holding placards with slogans — “We Want Safe Roads, We Want Justice, and We Are Students, Not Terrorists”.