Student leaders in Bangladesh has urged country’s Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus to lead the interim government after Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India. In a video posted on social media early Tuesday morning, Nahid Islam, one of the key coordinators of the students movement, said that Prof Yunus has agreed to take on this crucial responsibility at the call of the student community to save the country, the Daily Star newspaper reported. "We took 24 hours to announce a framework for the interim government. However, considering the emergency situation, we are announcing it now," Nahid said. "We have decided that the interim government would be formed in which internationally renowned Nobel Laureate Dr Mohammad Yunus, who has wide acceptability, would be the chief adviser," said Nahid, flanked by two other coordinators. Earlier, in his reaction to Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus described Bangladesh as a “free country” after Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign as prime minister and flee the country after weeks of violent anti-quota protests that finally demanded her resignation. “We were an occupied country as long as she (Sheikh Hasina) was there. She was behaving like an occupation force, a dictator, a general, controlling everything.

Today all the people of Bangladesh feel liberated,” Muhammad Yunus said in an interview. Muhammad Yunus, who has been charged by the Awami League government in over 190 cases, accused the fleeing Sheikh Hasina of destroying her father, ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rehman's legacy. The economist is known for his expertise in microfinance and has his work had lifted millions of people out of poverty. Once seen as Sheikh Hasina's potential rival to the country's prime ministership, she accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner was convicted on charges of embezzling $2 million (more than 16 crore rupees) from the workers welfare fund of Grameen Telecom, one of several firms he founded. Yunus said violence and vandalism by the protesters is the expression of anger against Sheikh Hasina and “an expression of damage she has done”. He also expressed hope that the same students and young people will be leading Bangladesh in the right direction in future. Yunus explained that seething anger against Sheikh Hasina could not be expressed in a political way due to a series of rigged general elections. “So that came out as a simple demand for quota changes.

It immediately caught up because the government behaved the same way, attacking them rather than listening to them because they are not in a listening mood at all,” Yunus said. Western powers called Monday for calm in Bangladesh after long-ruling leader Sheikh Hasina fled, with the United States saluting the military for forming an interim government rather than cracking down further on protesters. Sheikh Hasina, who had particularly close relations with regional power India, enjoyed a mostly cooperative relationship with the West during her 15 years in power but had increasingly drawn criticism for her authoritarian turn. The United States called on all sides in Bangladesh to "refrain from further violence" as bullet-ridden bodies were strewn across hospital floors and looting swept the capital Dhaka. "Too many lives have been lost over the course of the past several weeks, and we urge calm and restraint in the days ahead," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh's founding father, had sought to quell a nationwide uprising that started with student-led protests against job quotas. Nearly 100 people were killed on Sunday as calls grew for her to step down.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan