PUTRAJAYA – A father has been sleeping with one eye open since violence broke out last week in the streets of Dhaka during the student protests.
Retired major general Nubli Hashim told Scoop that he became increasingly worried after the Bangladesh government restricted mobile and internet services, and any attempts to call his daughter’s local number were met with static.
“I was still able to contact my daughter last week. But we could only communicate via text messages over the weekend. I’m so thankful for my daughter’s local friends, who helped Malaysians stranded there buy top-ups for prepaid services.
“My daughter told me that curfew is not fixed but for certain hours, daily. It is still dangerous for them to go out and buy food, as the stores would only open briefly. The prices of food, such as vegetables and eggs, went up four times the usual price.”
This led Nubli and other parents to reach out to the Foreign Ministry for help.
“We’re so relieved that the government is evacuating Malaysians, including my daughter. We had submitted our ‘call for help’ to the Foreign Ministry this morning. Hours later, we were told that they would be put on a plane tomorrow.
“All I can say is we will sleep better once we have our kids with us.”
Other people, including Abdul Halim Othman and Ahmad Wafiq Kamarul, met with Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hassan at Wisma Putra here today.
Mohamad announced that Wisma Putra will be evacuating Malaysians tomorrow at 10am local time (12pm Malaysia time), where an AirAsia plane will bring them home on the same day.
Wafiq is one of the Malaysian students studying surgery at MyMensingh Medical College in Bangladesh, where he returned home last Thursday, a day before the nationwide curfew was imposed.
While protests are nothing new in Bangladesh, he told Scoop that they have escalated badly.
“Prior to my return, I heard from our local friends that the government may impose this curfew and I hurriedly purchased my flight ticket home. I informed the high commission in Dhaka that I would be returning.
“It was sort of a gamble at that time for me because the riots were ongoing. I hitched a ride with a local friend and stayed with him before boarding a flight the next day.”
The 23-year-old student, who hails from Kelantan, said he managed to catch an hour of sleep upon his return as he started to inform the parents of other Malaysian students of the current situation.
“I returned to Kelantan for a day, on July 19, and the next day, I came to Kuala Lumpur, and arranged as many meetings as I could with the parents.
“I also tried to keep communications open with my friends in Bangladesh, considering the limited internet connectivity.”
Meanwhile, another Malaysian student who returned home on July 20 said the high commission helped her and her friends get to the airport safely.
“Malaysian officials helped us by making calls to the local police to ensure that we arrived at the high commission safely. We stayed one night while we awaited our boarding passes.
“Two of my friends’ tickets were cancelled due to the Microsoft/CrowdStrike outage. Regardless, the officers helped them board a later flight,” said the Bangladesh Agricultural University student, who declined to be named.
Students in Bangladesh have been demonstrating since July 1 against recent court-reinstated quotas for government jobs. The quota was abolished in 2018.
Protesters are demanding changes to the system, which reserves 56% of public jobs for certain groups.
Following this protest, Bangladesh has imposed a nationwide curfew and deployed military personnel in Dhaka and other districts, following clashes between demonstrators and police during protests.
More than 160 people have died since violence broke out last Tuesday. – July 22, 2024