DHAKA: Bangladesh's president dissolved parliament on Tuesday, clearing the way for an interim government and new elections a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled following a violent crackdown on a student-led uprising.
President Mohammed Shahabuddin's office also announced that the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Begum Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister who had feuded with Hasina for decades, had been freed from house arrest.
Student protesters had threatened more demonstrations if parliament was not dissolved.
The movement that toppled Hasina rose out of demonstrations against public sector job quotas for families of veterans of Bangladesh's 1971 independence war. About 300 people were killed and thousands injured in violence that ripped through the country since July.
The decision to dissolve parliament was taken following meetings with the heads of armed forces, leaders of political parties, student leaders and some civil society representatives, the presidential statement said.
Protests against Hasina were fueled in part by poverty. After years of strong economic growth as the garment industry expanded, the $450 billion economy struggled with costly imports and inflation, and the government had sought a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
President Shahabuddin had said earlier that an interim government would hold elections soon after it takes over. Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman was due to meet student leaders to discuss the formation of the government. Hasina flew to India and is staying at a safe house outside Delhi.
Indian media reported that Hasina may travel to Britain, where she has family including a niece who is a government minister.
Britain's Home Office declined to comment on Hasina's specific case but said there was no provision in British immigration law allowing someone to travel to Britain to seek asylum.
India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told parliament that New Delhi had repeatedly "counselled restraint and urged situation to be defused through dialogue".
The student leaders said they want Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus as the chief adviser to the interim government and a spokesperson for Yunus said he had agreed.
Yunus, 84, and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for work to lift millions out of poverty by granting small loans of under $100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh. — Reuters
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
