Bangladesh’s President Mohammed Shahabuddin faced growing pressure on Monday to quit from leaders of the revolution that toppled autocratic ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August, who argue he was her appointee.

Shahabuddin, 74, widely known as “Chuppu”, was elected by parliament in 2023 by Hasina’s now ousted Awami League, but while the post is largely ceremonial, his potential removal from the role has sparked fears of a constitutional vacuum.

“Any decision regarding the removal of the president will be based on political consensus,” Shafiqul Alam, press advisor to the interim government that replaced Hasina, said on Monday.

The interim government is led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus as its “chief adviser”.

Government spokeswoman Syeda Rizwana Hasan, a minister in Yunus’s cabinet, said there is “an ongoing discussion regarding the removal” of Shahabuddin.

“It must be considered whether a government formed after a revolution should retain a president who was selected by a fascist government,” Hasan told reporters on Sunday.

“The demand for his removal stems from claims that he does not align with the spirit of the movement.”

Earlier this month, Shahabuddin sparked furious protests after he said he had never seen a resignation letter from Hasina — raising the prospect her departure was unlawful.

Soon after, Asif Nazrul, a student protest leader now serving in Yunus’s government, charged that the comments were a “violation of his oath of office”.

Last week, police clashed with a crowd of hundreds who tried to storm the presidential compound, leaving 30 officers and protesters injured.

‘Fragile state’

But those pushing for his removal face constitutional hurdles.

To impeach the president requires a two-thirds vote by parliament, with the speaker then assuming the post.

Parliament however was suspended following Hasina’s ouster, meaning the process to remove a president — and who would choose his successor — is open to question.

“If we want to make the most of this uprising, we should not be guided by whims that may create a constitutional vacuum,” Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, secretary general of the powerful Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said.

Hasnat Abdullah, convener of Students Against Discrimination, the protest group credited with sparking the uprising against Hasina, demanded a swift decision.

“We don’t want this situation to linger,” he said, claiming only the BNP opposed removing him.

But Mamun Al Mostofa, a professor of political science at the University of Dhaka, warned that challenging the post could lead to wider difficulties.

“Can the people reach a consensus on a candidate? Even if they do, who knows if there will be protests the next day?” Mostafa said.

“The government is in a fragile state, and it is unlikely they could handle such instability. What would follow then? Another cycle of anarchy.”

A protest outside the Bangladesh president’s home demanding his resignation ended on Wednesday when demonstrators clashed with riot police while trying to storm the compound, with 30 injured in the melee.

President Mohammed Shahabuddin’s powers are largely ceremonial, but he played a pivotal role at the height of an August student movement that ousted ex-premier Sheikh Hasina.

Shahabuddin announced his one-time ally had quit on the day she fled the country for India, paving the way for the caretaker administration now running the country.

But last week he said in an interview he had not actually seen a written letter from Hasina to that effect, raising the prospect that her resignation was unlawful.

Protesters began gathering outside Shahabuddin’s compound in Dhaka on Tuesday demanding he step down and accusing him of residual loyalty to Hasina and her Awami League party.

“Since the student-led protest toppled the fascist regime, there shouldn’t be a president from that regime,” Faruk Hossain, a student leader at the protest, said.

“He must be replaced by a people’s president.”

Several hundred protesters attempted to break through a security cordon and storm the compound shortly before midnight on Wednesday.

Talebur Rahman, a senior police official, said 25 policemen were injured by protesters.

“Nine are still undergoing treatment. The protesters threw stones and attacked them indiscriminately,” he said.

“The situation is now calm, and there is adequate security in place.”

The protesters dispersed after leaders of Students Against Discrimination, the group credited with sparking the uprising against Hasina, visited the site and pledged to find a replacement for President Shahabuddin.

“We will talk to political parties in front of the military chief on Thursday and then choose someone who will hold office,” student leader Hasnat Abdullah was quoted as saying by the Daily Star newspaper.

His colleague Sarjis Alam told the crowd to remain calm.

“If emotion takes over strategy, the country will suffer,” he added, according to the Daily Star report.

Several top officials seen as Hasina loyalists were purged from their positions after her ouster, including Supreme Court justices and the central bank chief.

Their departures usually followed student-led protests outside their homes or offices.

South African paceman Kagiso Rabada claimed a record-setting 300th test wicket as Bangladesh were bowled out for 106 in their opening innings on the first day of the first test at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Monday.

Rabada became the fastest to 300 test wickets, achieving the feat in 11,187 balls, and with a strike rate of 39.39, to break former Pakistan pacer Waqar Younis’ record of 12,602 balls.

South Africa were 140-6 in reply when bad light stopped play, with a 34-run lead after a day of attrition for batsmen as a total of 16 wickets fell.

Kyle Verreynne (18 not out) and Wiaan Mulder (17 not out) will resume on Tuesday.

All-rounder Mulder took the first three wickets early in the opening session to leave Bangladesh, who had won the toss and elected to bat, reeling at 21-3 before Rabada bowled Mushfiqur Rahim to reach the milestone.

His 300th wicket came in his 65th test. Only five other South African bowlers have taken 300 or more test wickets, with Dale Steyn’s 439 topping the list.

The 29-year-old Rabada, who has a test bowling average of 22, then had Litton Das expertly caught in the slips by Tristan Stubbs’ flying effort as Bangladesh slumped further and went to lunch 60-6.

South Africa took 14 overs after lunch to skittle out Bangladesh, whose opener Mahmudul Hasan Joy top scored with 30 before being the seventh wicket to fall.It was the second lowest total at the venue, after the 87 that Bangladesh scored when they lost by an innings and eight runs to Pakistan in December 2021.

Rabada finished with figures of 3-26, Mulder 3-22 and spinner Keshav Maharaj 3-34 with Dane Piedt taking the other wicket when he bowled Mahmudul at the start of the second session.

Taijul Islam took 5-49 in South Africa’s reply, passing the 200-test wicket mark as the visitors struggled to settle under the home spin attack.Tony de Zorzi (30), Ryan Rickelton (27) and Stubbs (23) all threatened to get going but Taijul had them all caught behind off his turning deliveries.

South Africa’s reply started poorly with stand-in captain Aiden Markram playing on to Hasan Mahmud and being dismissed for six at the end of the first over.

The test in Dhaka is the first of a two-match series with the second in Chittagong next week.

Bangladesh’s interim leader has refused to give a timeframe for elections following the ouster of his autocratic predecessor, saying in an interview published Tuesday that reforms are needed before polls.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was appointed the country’s “chief advisor” after the student-led uprising that toppled ex-premier Sheikh Hasina in August.

The 84-year-old microfinance pioneer is helming a temporary administration, to tackle what he has called the “extremely tough” challenge of restoring democratic institutions.

“None of us are aiming at staying for a prolonged time,” Yunus said of his caretaker government, in an interview published by the Prothom Alo newspaper.

“Reforms are pivotal,” he added. “If you say, hold the election, we are ready to hold the election. But it would be wrong to hold the election first.”

Hasina’s 15-year rule saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents.

More than 600 people were killed in the weeks leading up to her ouster, according to a preliminary United Nations report which said the figure was likely an underestimate.

Her government was also accused of politicising courts and the civil service, as well as staging lopsided elections, to dismantle democratic checks on its power.

Yunus said he had inherited a “completely broken down” system of public administration that needed a comprehensive overhaul to prevent a future return to autocracy.

“Reforms mean we will not allow a repetition of what happened in the past”, he added.

‘Write as you please’

Yunus also batted away criticism at the numerous politicians, senior police officers and other Hasina loyalists arrested on murder charges after her government’s ouster.

The arrests have prompted accusations that Yunus’ caretaker government would hold politicised trials of senior figures from Hasina’s regime.

But Yunus said it was his intention that any criminal trials initiated against those arrested would remain free from government interference.

“Once the judicial system is reformed, then the issues will come forward, about who will be placed on trial, how justice will be carried out,” he said.

At least 25 journalists — considered by Hasina’s opponents to be partisans of her government — have been arrested for alleged violence against protesters since her downfall.

Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders has condemned those arrests as “systematic judicial harassment”.

But Yunus insisted he wanted media freedom.

“Write as you please,” he told the newspaper.

“Criticise. Unless you write, how will we know what is happening or not happening? “

The son of Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, said he was happy with the army chief’s timeline for elections within 18 months, though it was later than expected, but warned that genuine reform and polls were impossible without her party.

General Waker-uz-Zaman, whose refusal to stand by Hasina in the face of deadly student protests prompted her flight to India in August, has told Reuters that democracy should return within a year to a year-and-a-half.

“I’m happy to hear we have an expected timeline at least now,” Hasina’s son and adviser, Sajeeb Wazed, told Reuters late on Tuesday.

“But we have seen this play out before where an unconstitutional, unelected government promises reform and then things only get worse.”

He was referring to Bangladesh’s history of coups since independence from Pakistan in 1971. The most recent was in 2007, when the military backed a caretaker government that ruled until Hasina took power two years later in a tenure that ran 15 years.

With the police left in disarray after Hasina fled, the powerful army took a key role in subsequent events, with Zaman saying he meets the head of the interim government each week as the military backs its stability efforts.

The two main political parties, Hasina’s Awami League and its bitter rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), have both called for elections to be held within three months of the interim government taking office in August.

The south Asian nation’s unelected interim government led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus has promised reforms in the judiciary, police and financial institutions before elections, but has not set a date for the exercise.

On Wednesday, Yunus’ office said the government would hold talks with political parties after receiving recommendations from the six reform panels it has set up.

“Once the consensus on the reforms is reached and the voter list is prepared, the date for the vote will be announced,” it said in a statement.

The BNP said it would like elections held at the earliest opportunity.

Wazed, who lives in Washington, said neither he nor the interim government had reached out for talks on the way ahead for the country of 170 million.

“It’s impossible to have legitimate reforms and elections by excluding the oldest and largest political party,” he added.

Hasina has been sheltering near Delhi since she fled last month. Many other senior Awami League leaders have either been arrested on accusations of having roles in the strife that killed more than 1,000 people, or have gone into hiding.

Many Awami League activists have been killed since Hasina’s downfall, Wazed added.

Representatives of the interim government did not immediately respond to requests for comment on his statements.

The head of an election reform panel, Badiul Alam Majumder, said it would make recommendations within three months following a review.

“It’s up to the government to decide whether to hold talks with the Awami League or determine the timing of the elections,” he added.

Last month, Wazed told Reuters that Hasina was ready to face trial at home, a demand made by students who led the uprising, and that the Awami League would like to fight the elections.

On Tuesday, asked when Hasina might return home, he replied, “That will be up to her. Right now I want to keep my party people safe, so I want to raise international awareness on the atrocities being committed against them by this Yunus regime.”

WATCH | Saba Naqvi in conversation with Sudeep Chakravarti

In the context of his latest book, Fallen City, the author talks about Bangladesh’s transformation over the years, violence against the nation’s Hindus, protests in Kolkata, and more.
| Video Credit:
Interview: Saba Naqvi; Camera: Dipesh Arora; Production Assistant: Vitasta Kaul and Vedaant Lakhera; Editing: Samson Ronald K.; Produced By: Jinoy Jose P.

The prolific author Sudeep Chakravarti’s 10th book, Fallen City, is about Delhi, where two children, Geeta and Sanjay, were brutally murdered in 1978. He places the crime in a socio-political context. Chakravarti’s own life is as interesting as his work and he has just emerged after three years in Dhaka, where he set up a South Asia study department at a university.

In an interview with Frontline, he speaks about his latest book, Bangladesh’s transformation over the years, the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, the recent spate of violence against the nation’s Hindus, the protests in Kolkata, and more.

Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.

The prolific author Sudeep Chakravarti’s 10th book, Fallen City, is about Delhi, where two children, Geeta and Sanjay, were brutally murdered in 1978. He places the crime in a socio-political context. Chakravarti’s own life is as interesting as his work and he has just emerged after three years in Dhaka, where he set up a South Asia study department at a university. In an interview with Frontline, he speaks about his latest book, Bangladesh’s transformation over the years, the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, the recent spate of violence against the nation’s Hindus, the protests in Kolkata, and more. Edited excerpts:

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Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.

“Made our house with blood

Delhi tries to scare us with water”

Thus reads a couplet from a popular poet in Dhaka: Hasan Robayet. He has been a key figure in the recent student movement in Bangladesh that ousted Sheikh Hasina on August 5. Since then, Hasina has remained in India, which has only added to the anti-India sentiments brewing among the Bangladeshi people for decades. Now, many are blaming the flood, which has inundated eight districts in Bangladesh, on India for opening the gates of some upstream barrages and dams following torrential rains, which has at least partly contributed to the unprecedented scale of the disaster. (India, however, has issued denials.) Even before the flood and the student movement, Bangladeshis had organised an “India out” movement where they called for a complete boycott of Indian goods. As such, anti-India sentiments have been rife in Bangladesh for quite some time now.

But why? Perhaps the chief reason, apart from from communal sentiments held by a small section, is that the vast majority of the population believes that India has supported the dictatorial regime of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh for far too long. It is a widely believed hypothesis that Hasina was able to hold the 2014, 2019 and 2024 elections, which saw massive irregularities and were often boycotted by the opposition parties, due to the Indian government’s support. In return for this support, Hasina provided India with a wide array of benefits, such as transit through Bangladesh, use of its ports, building a controversial coal-fired power plant near the Sundarbans to serve Indian purposes, and more.

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But all this invincible-looking “house of cards” needed was a firm push to come crashing down. What began as a student revolt against an unfair job quota system—a fight that had seen success in 2018 only to be overturned by an apex court decision in 2024—quickly spiralled into a nationwide uprising, fueled by widespread grievances against Hasina’s increasingly authoritarian rule, marked by injustice, inflation, corruption, and a suffocating suppression of basic rights. The government’s choice to bypass dialogue in favour of a brutal crackdown by police and armed Chhatra League (a student wing of Awami League) goons resulted in over 300 deaths, serving only to fan the flames of dissent. As vast cadres of private university students followed the public university protesters to the streets, and eventually, the masses rallied behind them, the writing was on the wall for Hasina’s reign.

The military’s decision to halt the violence and ensure Hasina’s safe exit marked a turning point. However, the jubilation of the “second liberation” that followed was short-lived. The law-and-order situation broke down completely as police, BGB and RAB—the erstwhile forces used as tools of repression by the old regime—fled their stations for fear of mob justice, a vacuum criminals of all kinds took advantage of. In addition to widespread robberies, the main driver of violence was revenge against Awami League leaders, affiliates or supporters. Minorities, who generally support Awami League, and tend to be an easier target, were certainly not spared.

Attacks on non-political Hindu homes and businesses also took place. These were possibly perpetrated by vested interest groups or communal forces coveting Hindu properties. This unfortunate and shameful targeting of minorities in Bangladesh is not new. It began as early as the birth of Pakistan in 1947 and has persisted even during the height of Awami League rule, which traditionally claimed to protect minority rights. What was new, however, was that many Islamic leaders and Madrasah students stood alongside common people to protect minority establishments, a beautiful if rare symbol of communal harmony during this troubled time. This complex and nuanced nature of the truth was largely missed by international media, and worse, many Indian outlets exaggerated the numbers, aggressively weaponized misinformation and mischaracterised incidents to serve their own political purposes and discredit Bangladesh’s pro-democracy movement.

Hasina’s sudden flight, which caught even most Awami League leaders by surprise, not only shook the very foundations of Bangladesh’s political landscape—it also left behind a constitutional vacuum. The constitutional changes made by Hasina’s regime to entrench its power had left no clear path for another “caretaker” government. Into this vacuum stepped an “interim” government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, a choice unilaterally decided and pre-emptively announced by the victorious student leaders.

Although a reputed and experienced set of advisers has been appointed to lead the various ministries, the interim government faces a gargantuan task. While the law and order situation is slowly returning to normalcy, the Hasina regime has left behind a series of decrepit and deeply politicised institutions, having done irreparable damage to the executive, judiciary, bureaucracy, academia and financial sectors over 15 years. For example, Sheikh Hasina’s private industry and investment adviser Salman Fazlur Rahman alone holds over 1.5 Billion US dollars of default loans, crippling many banks and earning the nickname “The architect of default culture”. Hasina and her cronies siphoned off some $150 billion out of the country in the 15 years of her rule, which is more than double the current (and highest ever) national budget and much greater than our current outstanding foreign debt of $94 billion.

Saving the economy from collapse and returning some of the laundered assets seems to be a high priority, aside from all the constitutional, systemic and electoral reforms, and delivering justice for the “July massacre”, that this government has been given the popular mandate to do. But just as the government was gearing up to take on that task, it must now deal with the urgent flood crisis. Each of these tasks is made doubly difficult due to the numerous beneficiaries, co-conspirators, and loyalists of the old regime both abroad and at home, embedded deep within the bureaucratic machinery, army, police and other institutions. As a result, even the all-important question of when the next free, participatory, and fair democratic election will be held remains unanswered, even though Muhammad Yunus has repeatedly highlighted that as the ultimate objective of his government.

Notwithstanding India’s rebuttal of allegations that it intentionally opened the dams in an act of sabotage, the people in Bangladesh are angry. India must act urgently to earn back the trust of the Bangladeshi people. India needs to decide, in the shortest time window possible, if it will build a friendly relationship with the Bangladeshi people, and respect its sovereignty, or choose to side with a fallen, disgraced and murderous dictator at the expense of alienating its important neighbour further.

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It should be seen as taking steps to stop efforts at misinformation and should not be seen as extending continued support to Hasina. Delhi should not be perceived to be trying to sway the upcoming elections in its own favour, whether through overt or covert means. Last but not least, it needs to demonstrate goodwill by ensuring fair water-sharing agreements and coming clean about its role in the ongoing flood and refraining from using aggressive tactics on the borders. The people of Bangladesh will accept nothing less than a complete overhaul of the India-Bangladesh relations. The perception in Bangladesh is that it has historically always been treated as India’s vassal state.

As Hasan Robayet’s couplet reminds us, we have (re-)built our house with blood. The resurgent people of Bangladesh will not allow anyone, be it Delhi or any other power, to wash away their hard-earned freedom with floods of water or communal fear-mongering. It is Bangladesh’s time to assert its sovereignty, heal its own wounds, and step confidently into a future of its own making.

Rubayat Khan is a political analyst and co-founder of Jagoree, a citizen’s activism platform.

Anupam Debashish Roy is a PhD student at Oxford. Both serve as co-editors of Muktipotro, an online free media establishment.