BANGLADESH FLOATS DEATH PENALTY FOR ROAD DEATHS
Minister says cabinet has approved law for accidents ‘caused deliberately’
BANGLADESH yesterday promised to introduce the death penalty for deliberate road deaths in a bid to quell more than a week of demonstrations calling for better road safety, as new student-led protests were met with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Law and Justice Minister Anisul Huq said the cabinet had approved a new law allowing for the death penalty “if an investigation finds that the death in a road accident has been caused deliberately”.
Over the weekend, scores of people were hurt as police fired tear gas and pro-government mobs attacked demonstrators, photographers and even the United States ambassador’s car.
The tens of thousands of teenage school pupils and university students who have paralysed the capital and elsewhere for the past nine days were pressing for better road safety after a speeding bus killed two teenagers on July 29.
The latest clashes yesterday in the Rampura neighbourhood saw police use tear gas to dispel students from a private university, local police chief Rafiqul Islam said.
“They tried to set ablaze a police camp. We fired tear gas to disperse them,” he said, adding that four officers were injured.
Students said police fired rubber bullets at protesters in an area home to two private universities and members of the student wing of the ruling Awami League party attacked the protesters with sticks and bricks.
“The situation is very bad. We have carried at least three students to the nearby Apollo Hospital,” student Z. Mallick said.
The protests took a violent turn in Dhaka on Saturday, with more than 100 people hurt as police fired rubber bullets at demonstrators, according to students and doctors who treated the injured.
The authorities have shut down mobile Internet services across swathes of the country and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged students to go home.