If July 18 had revealed the state’s capacity for violence, July 19 -- the second day of the students’ “Complete Shutdown” programme -- showed its willingness to use that violence without restraint. By nightfall, at least 66 people were dead, making it one of the bloodiest days of the July uprising.
Dhaka came to a standstill. Fear gripped the city. The internet blackout, imposed on July 18, continued.
Some of what was lost that day defied the scale of a death toll. In Narayanganj, six-and-a-half-year-old Riya Gope was shot while playing on her rooftop. She died four days later at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Her name would become one of the quiet, devastating reminders of what the uprising cost the youngest and least involved.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police indefinitely suspended public gatherings and processions to curb the protests. On government orders, Bangladesh Railway halted train services between Dhaka and the rest of the country.
Public anger also turned on government installations.
Two Metrorail stations -- symbols of the government’s “development narrative” -- were attacked and set on fire. The Mirpur Indoor Stadium was also torched.
In Narsingdi, protesters stormed the district jail, looted weapons and freed more than 800 inmates, a jailbreak that would complicate the security response in the days ahead.
The Sheikh Hasina-led government also moved swiftly to cut off the movement’s leadership.
Men identifying themselves as detective police picked up coordinators Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud Sajib Bhuiyan and Abu Baker Majumder. Authorities separately detained Gono Odhikar Parishad’s Nurul Haque Nur and BNP’s Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
With key coordinators detained and the internet blackout severing communication, the movement risked slipping into a leadership vacuum.
Yet, at around 9:30pm, Abdul Kader, one of the coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement who had not been detained, sent a message to the media announcing a nine-point charter.
It demanded that Sheikh Hasina publicly apologise and take responsibility for the killings and that Asaduzzaman Khan and Obaidul Quader resign from their ministerial positions, among other demands. The organisers also vowed to continue the shutdown.
But a different message reached the public the same night.
Coordinators Sarjis Alam and Hasnat Abdullah met three government ministers and later announced an eight-point demand that omitted the call for Hasina to apologise and take responsibility.
Just before midnight, the government imposed a nationwide curfew from 12:00am, deployed the army and declared a two-day general holiday.
Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader confirmed that the curfew carried a “shoot-at-sight” provision -- a phrase that would come to define the state’s response to the protests that week.
Nayeb Ishraf Khan, a Dhaka University student who took part in the uprising, recalled being caught in tear gas shelling while protesting in the Science Lab area that Friday.
“It was horrific,” he said. “I somehow managed to get home, which was nearby on Central Road in Dhanmondi.”
He said the internet blackout made it impossible to stay in regular contact, but youths in his neighbourhood still gathered to exchange updates on the movement and plan their next steps.
The imposition of curfew, he said, stirred fear among them, but most remained resolute to keep protesting.
