Bangladesh lifted curfew on Friday, but enforced strict controls on media as emergency laws were imposed after elections postponed.
DHAKA: Bangladesh lifted a night curfew on Friday, but enforced strict controls on the media as part of emergency laws imposed after elections were postponed in a bid to halt political violence.
The president’s decision to quit as the interim government’s chief appeared to calm the capital Dhaka, which along with most other parts of the country, has been beset by months of protests and strikes in which at least 45 people have been killed.
Armed troops patrolled city streets but witnesses reported no trouble. Soldiers with automatic weapons guarded Dhaka airport, the country’s main gateway, while traffic on the normally choked streets of the city was thin as Friday is a weekly holiday in the Islamic nation.
“There will be no night-time curfew from Friday, but the state of emergency will continue,” a Dhaka police officer said. The impoverished South Asian country still faces uncertainty over when elections, which had been scheduled for Jan. 22, will take place following President Iajuddin Ahmed’s resignation as head of the interim government. The main role of the interim government head was to take the country through to elections.
Meanwhile, President Iajuddin Ahmed on Friday swore in a former central bank governor as head of the country’s new caretaker government, trying to defuse a bloody political crisis that has paralysed the country ahead of general elections. Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank and onetime economics professor, took the oath of office from President Ahmed during a brief ceremony at the presidential palace.
The ceremony came just one day after the president had declared a state of emergency, postponed the January 22 elections and stepped down as leader of the caretaker government. Fakhruddin Ahmed, whose main job is to lay the ground for national elections, made no comment during the ceremony, which was nationally televised.
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