After 36 days of relentless protest, Bangladesh brought an end to fifteen years of autocratic rule. On August 5, Sheikh Hasina fled the country in the face of a student-led mass uprising.

Rhiya Ahir’s stand before a police vehicle in Mumbai bears a striking resemblance to Nusrat Jahan’s widely shared photograph from the July Uprising

On July 23, 2024, amid the raging protests led by Students Against Discrimination (SAD), the public ad-ministration ministry issued a circular slashing quota-based recruitment in civil service to seven percent and raising merit-based recruitment from 44 to 93 percent.

Addressing rumours that she had fled the country, then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina told nearly 450 business leaders gathered at her office on July 22, 2024, “Sheikh Hasina does not flee”.

On this day in July 2024, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court struck down the High Court’s earlier order to reinstate the quota system and instead ruled that 93 percent of government jobs would be filled on merit and seven percent through quotas.

The last thing 16-year-old Aminul Islam Amin told his mother before leaving home on July 21, 2024, was, “Maa, give me Tk 20. I want to buy some jhalmuri from the street”. After she gave him the money, he stepped outside and never returned home.

In a desperate bid to contain the unrest following the bloodshed of July 19 during the July uprising, the government imposed a nationwide curfew from midnight on July 20, 2024, and deployed the army to restore order across the country.

If July 18 had revealed the state’s capacity for violence, July 19 -- the second day of the students’ “Complete Shutdown” programme -- showed its willingness to use that violence without restraint.

On August 5, 2024, then a 16-year-old ninth-grader Al Amin Hossain joined thousands of protesters outside BRAC University.

Two others received prison terms in the crimes against humanity case

Two other teachers relieved of academic duties

Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed said those involved in armed attacks against activists of the July uprising would be treated as criminals, irrespective of their uniform, and assured proper investigation of all cases and protection for July fighters.

‘Through reforms, we want to remove the garbage of society’, Shafiqur says

International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentences former lawmaker Saiful Islam and five others to death over the killing and burning of protesters during the July uprising in Ashulia

Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Shafiqur Rahman yesterday warned that voters would show a “red card” in the February 12 national elections to those who fail to recognise the spirit of the 2024 mass uprising.

ICT-1 jails five other former police officials to varying terms

The tribunal says the verdict was deferred as the judgment is yet to be prepared

The protests represent a wholesale rejection of entrenched elites and dynastic politics.

Police and armed activists of then ruling Awami League committed killings during the July uprising at 438 locations across 41 districts, a prosecution witness told the International Crimes Tribunal-1 yesterday.

During the July uprising, then Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Habibur Rahman instructed police to open fire with “maximum force” to bring the situation under control, a prosecution witness told the International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-1) yesterday.