Quota protest coordinators refuse to sit with govt

Coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement have said they have no plan to sit with the government, one of the coordinators confirmed The Business Standard.

Asif Mahmud, another coordinator of the movement, wrote on Facebook, “When we were detained in the DB office, we were asked to meet with the Prime Minister and suspend the movement. There was even a plan to take us to Ganobhaban forcibly. 

“We went on a hunger strike in protest against this proposal and to demand our release,” he wrote. 

“We are ready to pay the price of an uncompromising stance, even if it means death. We call for the participation of every citizen of Bangladesh in the student-citizen uprising,” Asif wrote. 

Earlier last night (2 August), Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina assigned three senior Awami League (AL) leaders to talk to quota reform movement coordinators.

“We are trying to communicate with them,” AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif MP, one of the three assigned leaders, said.

Two other leaders assigned by the Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, are the party’s praesidium member, Jahangir Kabir Nanok MP and joint general secretary AFM Bahauddin Nasim MP.

Highly placed sources said that Sheikh Hasina assigned them to hold talks with the quota reform movement coordinators after a meeting at Gano Bhaban on Friday night.