100 injured as Bangladesh student groups clash over job quotas

Dhaka: Rival students in Bangladesh clashed on Monday leaving at least 100 people injured, as demonstrators opposing quotas for coveted government job...

Dhaka: Rival students in Bangladesh clashed on Monday leaving at least 100 people injured, as demonstrators opposing quotas for coveted government jobs battled counter-protesters loyal to the ruling party, police said.

Police and witnesses said hundreds of anti-quota protesters and students backing the ruling Awami League party battled for hours on Dhaka University campus, hurling rocks, fighting with sticks and beating each other with iron rods.

Some carried machetes while others threw petrol bombs, witnesses said.

The quota system reserves more than half of well-paid civil service posts totalling hundreds of thousands of government jobs for specific groups, including children of heroes from the country's 1971 liberation war from Pakistan.

"They clashed with sticks and threw rocks at each other," local police station chief Mostajirur Rahman told AFP.