Getty ImagesNobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, a long-time political adversary of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has been appointed as the country’s interim leader.
The appointment of this 84-year-old student as a senior adviser to the interim government comes a day after Ms Hasina fled the country after weeks of deadly violence.
While Prof Yunus has been praised for his openness to using small loans, Ms Hasina has been praised he considered him a public enemy and recently the local court gave him a prison sentence in this case which he described as politically related.
The students who led the protests said that they will not accept the government led by the military and they are pushing for Prof. Yunus to lead the interim administration.
The decision to appoint Prof Yunus as the chief adviser came after a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders, and student leaders.
“When students who sacrificed so much asked me to intervene in this difficult time, how can I refuse?” Prof. Yunus had said.
He is returning to Dhaka from Paris for surgery, his spokesman said.
In 1983, Prof. Yunus started the Grameen Bank, which provides small, long-term loans to help poor people start their own small businesses. The concept has taken off around the world.
In 2006, Prof Yunus and the bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
He is known around the world as the “banker of the poor”, but Ms Hasina had described him as “sucking the blood” of the poor and accused his bank of charging exorbitant interest rates.
In January, Prof. Yunus was he was sentenced to six months in prison for violating the country’s labor laws by failing to establish a welfare fund for their employees.
His supporters said that this case is politically motivated, while Prof. Yunus, who opposes the decision, said that it is “against everything legal and logical”.
There have been other charges against him, including tax evasion and working at Grameen Bank beyond the mandatory retirement age – but Prof Yunus and his lawyer insist these are baseless.
The protests began in early July with peaceful demands by university students for an end to civil service quotas, but snow became an anti-government movement.
In total, more than 400 people are believed to have died in the fighting between government forces and protesters.
On Monday alone, more than 100 people died in violent clashes across the country, making it the deadliest single day since protests began last month. Hundreds of police stations were also burnt.
When protesters stormed and ransacked the prime minister’s residence, Mrs. Hasina fled to neighboring India, ending her nearly 15-year reign.
Prominent opposition figures imprisoned under his regime, including former prime minister Khaleda Zia and activist Ahmad Bin Quasem, have since been released.
Ms Zia is the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which boycotted the elections in 2014 and again in 2024, saying. free and fair elections were held under Ms. Hasina.
The 78-year-old served as prime minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996, but was arrested in 2018 for corruption, although he said the charges were politically motivated.
Rights groups say Mr Quasem was taken by the military in 2016, as one of hundreds of people forcibly disappeared in the country under Ms Hasina’s regime.
Across India’s border, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said he was “deeply concerned until law and order is clearly restored” in Bangladesh, with which India shares a 4,096-kilometer (2,545-mile) border and has close economic and cultural ties.
He gave the first official confirmation that Ms Hasina had applied to go to India at “very short notice” and then arrived in Delhi.
India has also sent more troops to its border with Bangladesh.
“Our border guards have also been ordered to be on high alert due to this difficult situation,” Mr Jaishankar said.
Foreign leaders have asked Bangladesh to respect democracy after the appointment of Prof. Yunus.
“Any decisions taken by the interim government, they must respect the principles of democracy… [and] they reflect the will of the people,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong called on all parties to refrain from violence and “respect universal human rights”.
“We call for a full, independent and impartial investigation into the events of the past weeks,” he added.
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