Sheikh Hasina lands at Hindon Air Base as protesters unleash mayhem in Dhaka

New Delhi: Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina landed at the Hindon Air Base in Ghaziabad on Monday, hours after resigning as the country’s Prime Minister and leaving Dhaka en route Delhi.

Hasina arrived in India in a military transport plane of Bangladesh Air Force as thousands of protesters stormed and vandalised ‘Ganabhaban’ – the official residence of the Prime Minister in Dhaka.

Several reports cited that she will be leaving for London soon.

The house of Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal was also reportedly set on fire in Dhanmondi, an upscale area of the Bangladesh capital.

As Hasina left for India, Bangladesh Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman confirmed the news of her resignation and said that an interim government will be formed soon to run the country.

The Army chief also said he will meet President Mohammed Shahabuddin soon to chart the future course of action.

It was reported that over 100 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in the clashes that took place between police and the protesters on Sunday.

“With yesterday’s count, the death toll in anti-government protests crossed 300 in just three weeks, making it the bloodiest period in the history of Bangladesh’s civil movement,” the country’s leading daily ‘The Daily Star’ reported.

The student-led non-cooperation movement put immense pressure on the government led by Prime Minister Hasina over the past many weeks.

The students had been protesting against a 30 per cent reservation in government jobs for relatives of freedom fighters who wrested independence for Bangladesh from Pakistan in a bloody civil war in 1971 in which, according to Dhaka officials, three million people were killed in the genocide by Pakistani troops and their supporters.

After the Supreme Court slashed the reservations to 5 per cent, student leaders put the protests on hold, but the demonstrations flared up again because the students said the government ignored their call to release all their leaders, making the resignation of PM Hasina their primary demand.

IANS