Dhaka: After a lull of several days, violence and clashes erupted again in Dhaka tonight, resulting in injuries to over 40 people.
The violence started after hundreds of students, many of them carrying sticks, marched towards the Secretariat where a protest was being staged by members of Ansar Bahini, a kind of militia.
The students, who recently carried out an agitation which led to the fall of Sheikh Hasina government, tried to evict the Ansar members, calling them “agents of autocracy”.
The Ansar members initially moved back as students reached the area but subsequently returned to hit the students with sticks.
They also threw bricks at the students and clashes ensued between two groups.
The students attacked the members of the Ansar after they refused to withdraw their protest despite the interim government’s assurance of abolishing the “rest tradition” in the force.
According to the rules, an Ansar member is sent on a six-month mandatory leave after working for three consecutive years.
During this period, the member does not get paid.
There are three branches of Ansar: the General Ansar, the Battalion Ansar, and the Village Defence Party (VDP).
According to officials, General Ansar members, who number around 70,000, are not paid any salary by the government.
Its member is paid 540 Takas per day by the office where he is deployed for security and other purposes.
On average, the Ansar and VDP headquarters receive a deployment requisition for 55,000 for different institutes or government offices around the year.
Besides General Ansars, there are around 17,000 regular members in the force called the Battalion Ansar.
The force has also around 57 lakh VDP members, whose jobs are volunteer-based.
