INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
This summer Prapti Taposhi joined thousands of her fellow students in Bangladesh and took to the streets
She was furious about the unfairness of a quota system that reserved 30% of jobs for the children of freedom fighters from the 1971 war of
independence with Pakistan.Government jobs are well paid and secure and, students argued, it was a scheme that made no sense so long after
But then came a police crackdown, and protests that began peacefully led to 400 people being killed
Furious demonstrators now had a new demand: that the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, step down.The journalist David Bergman explains to
Hannah Moore that no one considered that would actually happen
Sheikh Hasina was the longest-serving female prime minister in the world
assassinated.Yet suddenly, last week, she did just that, escaping Bangladesh in a helicopter
How was a once popular leader, lauded as the politician who brought democracy back to the country after military rule, ousted by students?
And why?
Photograph: Suvra Kanti Das/ZUMA Press
Wire/REX/Shutterstock
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This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com
