Dhaka is in chaos!

We are currently in day three of some major riots in Dhaka, that have spread to other areas of the country. Subsequently, a curfew has been imposed since 8pm last night and I am going a little crazy being housebound – especially as I was home all day yesterday as I was sick. I did just pop out of the house then for about 5 minutes – but the streets were eerily quiet, with only a few shops open and the main road near our house, normally chaotic, was completely empty except for the odd ambulance (they are allowed to move around hence a number of people “hire” them in these situations) and police.

You may have heard in the news at home about the riots so I won’t go into too much details here but what started as students protesting against the army treatment of a student and their presence on campus at Dhaka University, has escalated into a combination of protests against the army backed caretaker government and the lack of democracy - plus hooligans jumping on the bandwagon and joining in the violence. Some strategic places have been targeted by the students such as particular officials houses, but there also seems to be a lot of random hooliganism - for example outside one friend’s workplace yesterday people started throwing rocks at a bus and as passengers started jumping out the windows they set it on fire.

There are a lot of theories and rumours about the bigger picture of what is actually going on. Probably best if I don’t document them on here but will be interesting to see how this all pans out...