DHAKA, 6th August, 2024 (WAM) -- Bangladesh's parliament was dissolved on Tuesday, the president's office said in a statement, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following violent protests demanding her ouster.
Reuters reported that the announcement came hours after protesting student leaders set a deadline to dissolve parliament and warned a "strict programme" would be launched if their deadline is not met.
Meanwhile, student leaders, who spearheaded the anti-quota movement that turned into a call for Sheikh Hasina to resign, proposed early on Tuesday Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus as the chief adviser to the interim government.
They said in a video on Facebook with three other organisers, “We have also had discussions with Muhammad Yunus and he has agreed to take on this responsibility at our invitation.”
Yunus, 84, and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace prize for work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans of under US$100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh but he was indicted by a court in June on charges of embezzlement that he denied.
Yunus is currently in Paris. His spokesperson told Reuters that Yunus will return to Bangladesh 'immediately' after a minor medical procedure in Paris.
In another important development, Bangladesh's first female Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is set to be released from house arrest. President Mohammed Shahabuddin ordered the immediate release of Zia, chief of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), late on Monday after discussing the formation of an interim government with politicians and the army. Hasina fled to India earlier in the day after resigning.