Bangladesh PM Hasina quits and flees as protesters storm palace

Sheikh Hasina’s departure appears to have defused the high tension in Dhaka, where more deadly protests were feared on Monday.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned and fled the country, the army chief has said, following weeks of deadly demonstrations.

In an address to the nation on Monday, General Waker-Uz-Zaman said that an interim government will now run the country.

Hasina, who had ruled the country for two decades, boarded a military helicopter, an aide told Al Jazeera, after crowds ignored a national curfew to storm her palace in Dhaka.

The resignation comes after 300 people have died amid weeks of protest the authorities have sought to crush. Following a night of deadly violence that killed close to 100 on Sunday, tension had remained high on Monday as protesters called for a march on Dhaka and the army prepared to address the nation.

By early afternoon, however, media reported that the mood on the streets had turned to one of celebration after the news of Hasina’s departure spread.

The army chief urged citizens to keep trust in the army, which, he said, would return peace to the country.

“We will also ensure that justice is served for every death and crime that occurred during the protests,” he said, calling on the public to exercise patience and cease any acts of violence and vandalism.

“We have invited representatives from all major political parties, and they have accepted our invitation and committed to collaborating with us,” the general added.

Images on national television showed thousands of people breaking into the prime minister’s official residence.

It also showed large crowds of protesters out in the street in scenes of jubilation as the news of the departure of Hasina started spreading.

Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Shahbag Square – the epicentre of the student protesters – said he has “never witnessed something like this” in the capital.

“Everybody is celebrating, not just students –  people from all walks of life. They said this had to happened, there was nothing we could say, democracy was squeezed and now we are free,” Chowdhury said. The message from the protesters is that whoever comes to power next “will now know that they won’t tolerate any kind of dictatorship or mismanagement and that the students will decide,” he said.

Protests in the country started a month ago over a controversial job quota scheme which reserved a third of government jobs for family veterans of the country’s 1971 independence war with Pakistan. Despite Hasina reversing the highly contested policy, the demonstration morphed into an unprecedented and nationwide uprising against her and the ruling Awami League party.

Now that she is gone and the army has promised an interim government, the military has a “very tough job ahead,” said Irene Khan, a UN special rapporteur.

“We are all hoping that the transition would be peaceful and that there will be accountability for all the human rights violations that have taken place recently including the killing of about 300 people in the last three weeks,” Khan told Al Jazeera.

“Bangladesh has, of course, an enormous task ahead. It is not the poster child of sustainable development anymore. The previous government had driven this country into despair, and there would be a lot of hard work to do to build it up but most of all I think its extremely important that the army respect human rights”.