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Bangladesh’s new interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus, has appealed to fellow Bangladeshis to “save the country from anarchy”.
Yunus, who returned to Bangladesh from Paris on Thursday, called for an end to attacks on Hindus and other religious minorities and for the restoration of law and order, three days after a street revolt toppled long-governing prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
“I appeal to the citizens to save the country from anarchy so that we are able to move ahead on the path that we have chosen,” Yunus told a press conference after arriving in Dhaka.
“While coming I got the news that there have been attacks on minorities — Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Ahmadiyyas,” he added. “That’s not for us, our job is to protect them.”
Bangladesh’s President Mohammed Shahabuddin dissolved parliament on Tuesday and agreed to a call by student protesters for Yunus to be named chief adviser — a post equivalent to prime minister — to an interim government that would hold power until a new election is held. The 84-year-old Yunus was sworn in on Thursday evening.
“Whatever path our students show us, we will move ahead on that path,” he told the earlier press conference.
India this week expressed alarm over what foreign minister S Jaishankar said were attacks on “minorities, their businesses and temples”. The overthrow of Hasina, who fled to neighbouring India, was accompanied by violence, looting and vandalism of buildings and memorials associated with her regime.
About 400 people have died since protests began last month, initially sparked by a scheme to reserve scarce government jobs for selected groups, including veterans of the 1971 Liberation War. After nearly 100 people died in protests on Sunday, activists demanded Hasina step down as prime minister, and thousands marched on her residence on Monday.
“Violence is the enemy of the journey we have undertaken,” Yunus said. “Unless the law and order situation improves we won’t be able to move forward.”
Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work at microlender Grameen Bank, was in recent years the target of a string of court cases that supporters called a vendetta by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.
He was mooted as a caretaker leader because he is not associated with either Hasina’s Awami League party or its arch-rival the Bangladesh National party.
BNP leader Khaleda Zia on Thursday also called for calm and an end to violence in a video statement. “No destruction, revenge or vengeance,” Reuters news agency quoted her as saying.
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