Bangladesh's Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting has defended the government's handling of mass protests, as United Nations experts called for an independent inquiry into the government's deadly crackdown on demonstrators.
In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, Mohammad Arafat said the country's security forces had done everything possible “to restore peace” amid the student protests.
He accused “third-party” actors, including “extremists and terrorists,” of fueling the unrest.
“We are not referring to students [as] “The terrorists and the anarchists are the third parties, those who have interfered in this movement and started doing all this,” Arafat said on March 22. Talk to Al Jazeera.
“We did everything we could to reduce the tension,” he said, adding that “some people are trying to add fuel to the fire, they are trying to create a situation where they can take advantage… and overthrow the government.”
Thousands of Bangladeshi students took to the streets earlier this month to demand reforms to the South Asian country's quota system, which allocates 30 percent of government jobs to descendants of veterans who fought for Bangladesh in the 1971 war.
More than 150 student protesters have been killed and thousands arrested in the crackdown on the demonstrations, according to local media, fuelling tensions across the country of more than 170 million people.
The protests turned violent on July 15 after members of the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of the country's ruling party, allegedly attacked protesters.
Police cracked down on the protests and imposed a curfew. Students were asked to evacuate universities, which were closed down; shops were closed and internet access was cut off across the country.
The Bangladesh government has come under international scrutiny for its handling of the protests.
On Thursday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for “an impartial, independent and transparent investigation into all alleged human rights violations” that occurred during the crackdown.
“We understand that many people were subjected to violent attacks by groups allegedly affiliated with the government and no effort was made to protect them,” Turk said.
In a separate statement, a group of UN experts also called for an independent investigation into what they described as the government’s “violent crackdown on protesters.”
“The government is blaming other people, others are blaming the government; we need a full and impartial investigation,” one of the experts, Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, told Al Jazeera.
“But since there is no trust in the government, it needs to be resolved with the international community,” Khan said Thursday.
“We call on the Government to invite the UN to conduct an investigation to find out what went wrong, to take responsibility and to hold those responsible to account.”
Minister: Official death toll not yet determined
In his interview with Talk to Al JazeeraArafat, the minister, said protesters stormed the headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television (BTV) in the capital, Dhaka.
He said that the police officers guarding the building were outnumbered and “since they were not allowed to open fire… these criminals entered the BTV, literally invaded, set fire and began to vandalize and destroy all the property.”
Arafat said the government has not yet determined an official death toll from the unrest.
“When it comes to victims, wounded and dead, we are not prepared to discriminate between the police and the general public, neither between protesters nor between people who support the government,” he said.
The minister told Al Jazeera that an independent judicial committee will ensure a thorough investigation into what happened, “so that all those responsible for any of these victims can be brought to justice.”
Arafat also dismissed any calls for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign, adding that she was only “protecting the people”.
On Tuesday, protesters extended the suspension of their demonstrations until Friday, but were scheduled to meet on Thursday to discuss whether to extend the pause further.
Among their main demands is that Hasina should publicly apologize for the student killings.
They also asked Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Education Minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel and Law Minister Anisul Haque to resign from the cabinet and the party.
