Following violent student protests across the country, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid reportedly resigned and fled to India on Monday.
A government source informed the media that Hasina and her sister had been taken to a “safe shelter” away from her official residence.
Student activists had called for a march to the capital, Dhaka, on Monday, defying a nationwide curfew in their push for Hasina’s resignation. This action followed deadly clashes that had killed nearly 100 people across the country. At least six people died in clashes between police and protesters in the Jatrabari and Dhaka Medical College areas on Monday.
Indian media has reported that the army had given the Prime Minister 45 minutes to resign after the student protests escalated. According to these reports, Hasina resigned and fled to India by helicopter. Protesters have reportedly entered the Prime Minister’s official residence, while the country’s army has urged the students to end their protest.
Army chief General Waker-Us-Zaman said in a televised address that Hasina, 76, had left the country and that an interim government would be formed.
Media reports said she had flown in a military helicopter with her sister and was headed to the eastern Indian state of West Bengal just across the border. Another report said she was headed to India’s northeastern state of Tripura.
Protesters in Dhaka also climbed atop a large statue of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father, and began chiseling away at the head with an axe, the visuals showed.
Bangladesh has been engulfed by protests and violence that began last month after student groups demanded the scrapping of a controversial quota system in government jobs.
That escalated into a campaign to seek the ouster of Hasina, who won a fourth straight term in January in an election boycotted by the opposition.
