147 killed during quota reform movement: Home Minister

The members of Bangladesh Police were forced to go for counter attacks during the recent student movement over the quota issue that claimed around 147 lives in the country.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said this while addressing a press conference on contemporary affairs held at his ministry office in Dhaka on Sunday.

Citing some pictures of brutalities on police forces, the home minister said, “I don’t know whether such barbarism takes place in any civilised country in the world.”

The perpetrators carried out the mayhem nationwide in a planned manner and now they are engaged in dishing out rumosrs home and abroad, Kamal said.

About the number of the total causality in the quota reform movement, he said disinformation is still being circulated in this regard.

“We have been informed about 147 casualties from different hospital sources. However, it is said that 500 people died in the mayhem,” he said.

Regarding the detention of the three student leaders, he said that they have not been arrested but been taken into custody in response to their request for security.

They will be released when they feel safe to leave, added the home minister.