At least 93 people have been killed in Bangladesh as fierce clashes took place in different cities across the country on Sunday, according to local media.

Protesters demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation clashed with pro-government supporters, leading to the 93 deaths, which included 14 policemen according to The Daily Star. These protests started as a student-led demonstration over quotas reserving certain government jobs for descendants of independence war veterans.

On June 5, 2024, Bangladesh’s High Court declared the 2018 abolition of the quotas illegal and reinstated them, thereby igniting student protests soon thereafter, with a decentralised movement springing up from multiple universities protesting the court’s verdict and demanding the scrapping of the veteran descendants’ quota. However, the Bangladeshi Supreme Court’s Appellate Division overturned the High Court and scaled back the quota system with only seven percent of government positions to be subjected to a quota, five percent of which is reserved for liberation war descendants.

Sunday marked the first day of the non-cooperation movement called by students, with tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets. The movement urged people not to pay taxes and utility bills and not to show up to work on Sunday until Prime Minister Hasina resigns.

The government has announced a three-day public holiday from Monday to ensure public safety amid a declaration of a long march to Dhaka by the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement on the same day. Additionally, the government has imposed an indefinite curfew to commence at 6pm on Sunday as the death toll continues to rise.