Autocrat whose 15-year iron grip on her country is over

Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister of 15 years, has fled the country after protesters demanding that she step down stormed her residence yesterday.

- ARPAN RAI

Ms Hasina, 76, reportedly handed over the country’s reins to the military before flying out in a helicopter to India, her strongest ally, bringing to an ignominious end her iron-fisted rule.

Bangladesh, a country of 160 million people, plunged into turmoil in late June when Ms Hasina’s government launched a crackdown on mainly student protesters demanding the rollback of a contentious quota system for government jobs. The crackdown saw dozens of protesters killed, many more injured and thousands detained.

After the Supreme Court slashed the jobs quota for relatives of veterans of the 1971 war of independence with Pakistan from 30 per cent to 5 per cent, the protests subsided, only to erupt more strongly last weekend. At least 95 people were killed on Sunday as the protesters clashed with security forces, taking the death toll in the demonstrations to more than 300.

The unrest that forced Ms Hasina to flee was an eerie reminder of the mob rampage at her home during the bloody military coup almost 50 years ago that ended in the assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujib Rahman, who was Bangladesh’s first prime minister.