Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus Thursday arrived in Bangladesh from Dubai to become the chief adviser to the interim government after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster from the Dhaka in the wake of deadly protests.
An Emirates flight (EK-582) carrying Yunus landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport Dhaka around 2:15pm local time today.
Bangladesh Army Chief Waker-Uz-Zaman announced that new interim government will be sworn in tonight.
The decision of making Prof Yunus the chief adviser came after a meeting was held Tuesday on the formation of the interim government between key organisers of the anti-discriminatory movement and President Mohammed Shahabuddin.
The country is in chaos after resignation and fleeing of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5 in the face of a mass students uprising against her. Her party Awami League government also felt the heat of protesters.
As per Bangldesh’s The Daily Star, between July 16 and today, over 400 people (as far as this newspaper could confirm) have been killed in violent clashes.
On July 23, the government through a circular reformed the quota system as per the demand of the students, but by then nearly 200 died in clashes.
The protesters demanded the resignation of Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet on August 3, holding her government responsible for the deaths. The government toppled in the space of three days.
Hasina was serving her fourth straight term in office since assuming power in 2009, and fifth overall.
ATMs out of cash in Dhaka
Nasir Hossain, a resident of the capital’s Dhanmondi area, had to urgently buy daily necessities as he had not gone to the market for the past few days in the wake of the deadly protests that forced Sheikh Hasina to resign from her post as prime minister.
He usually does not keep a lot of cash with him owing to the convenience of ATM booths.
But despite travelling all around his neighbourhood, Hossain could not withdraw money from any machine yesterday as they had all run out of cash.
“Overall, I visited almost 10 booths but failed to withdraw a single penny. Either they had run out of money or restricted the use of ATM cards issued by other banks,” he said.
