The protesters have issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the government to enact logical reforms to the quota system in all grades of government jobs by calling an emergency parliamentary session.
The protesters said this after submitting a memorandum to the military secretary to the president at Bangabhaban on Sunday.
They also demanded the withdrawal of cases filed against them over Thursday’s incident in Shahbagh, terming them as “false and fabricated”.
A group of 12 students entered Bangabhaban and submitted the memorandum in the afternoon.
The memorandum calls for the passage of a law through an emergency parliamentary session to enact logical reforms to the quota system in all grades of government jobs, said one of the coordinators of the protest, Hasnat Abdullah.
The students entering the Bangabhaban are coordinators and assistant coordinators Sarjis Alam, Nahid Islam, Rifat Rashid, Hasib, Baker, and others. They were led by the police.
Earlier in the morning, protesting students from different colleges and universities, demanding the reform of the quota system in government jobs in Bangladesh, gathered with banners at Dhaka University’s Central Library around 11am.
Their march program was briefly halted by police obstruction at the capital’s Gulistan in the morning. Consequently, the protesters decided to stay there to maintain order.
Over a hundred police officers, along with barricades, have been deployed across the country.
On June 5, the High Court ordered the government to restore the 30% quota for the children and grandchildren of freedom fighters in the recruitment of various cadre services.
Following the order, university students across the country began protesting against the quota system for government jobs.
On October 4, 2018, the government issued a circular abolishing all 56% quotas—30% for descendants of freedom fighters, 10% for women, 10% for people from underdeveloped districts, 5% for ethnic communities, and 1% for physically challenged—in the civil service after student protests.
