Bangladesh's civic society has accused the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka of intervening in domestic matters by providing active and covert support to the nation's radical student protestors.

This occurs at a time when Bangladesh's opposition Bangladesh Nationalistic Party (BNP) and radical Jamaat-e-Islami movement is growing stronger. Many sources claimed that the Pakistan mission maintains contact with a segment of the student demonstrators who are affiliated with the pro-Pakistan Jamaat, an organisation that is outlawed in Bangladesh.

Weeks of frequent violent protests have rocked the nation over Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's administration's decision to give the families of 1971 independence warriors a quota in government positions. This was opposed by the pro-Pakistan and anti-liberation family members and they rallied behind the students to intensify the stir.

The nation's Supreme Court significantly reduced the quota, but the student-led demonstrations aren't going away.

Pakistan-Bangladesh relations remain sour because Islamabad has not expressed regret for the crimes carried out during the 1971 independence struggle which the country's ruling Awami League has compared to genocide.

The protest movement has been hijacked by Islami Chattra Shibir, Jamaat's student arm, to initiate an anti-Hasina campaign. ET was the first to publish this.

According to experts, the aim of Jamaat and BNP is to seize power by inciting violence and conducting public rallies, as well as by imposing a reign of terror.

"It is by now evident that a vested quarter led by the BNP and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and their student's wing appropriated the largely peaceful quota reform movement by a section of students to unleash a reign of terror and anarchy," the foreign ministry of Bangladesh stated in a statement regarding the current situation.

Image source: AP