Bangladesh imposes nationwide curfew as deadly protests over ...

Bangladesh has imposed a curfew across the country and deployed the army amid widening student-led protests.

The protests broke out over student anger against quotas that set aside 30 per cent of government jobs for the families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan.

The United Nations rights chief has called for an investigation into protester deaths from police firing.

Bangladesh has announced the imposition of a curfew and the deployment of military forces after police failed to quell days of deadly unrest that has spread throughout the country.

This week's clashes between student demonstrators and police have killed at least 105 people, according to an AFP count of victims reported by hospitals, and pose a momentous challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's autocratic government after 15 years in office.

Local police have not issued a casualty toll.

"The government has decided to impose a curfew and deploy the military in aid of the civilian authorities," Ms Hasina's press secretary, Nayeemul Islam Khan, told AFP.

He added that the curfew would take immediate effect.

Police in the capital, Dhaka, earlier took the drastic step of banning all public gatherings for the day — a first since protests began — in an effort to forestall more violence.

"We've banned all rallies, processions and public gatherings in Dhaka today," police chief Habibur Rahman told AFP, adding the move was necessary to ensure "public safety".

The unrest has been fuelled by high unemployment among young people.(Reuters: Mohammad Ponir Hossain)

That, however, did not stop another round of confrontations between police and protesters around the sprawling megacity of 20 million people, despite an internet shutdown aimed at frustrating the organisation of rallies.

The protests initially broke out over student anger against quotas that set aside 30 per cent of government jobs for the families of those who fought for independence from Pakistan.

The unrest has been fuelled by high unemployment among young people, who make up nearly a fifth of a population of 170 million.

Protesters called for Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down.(Reuters: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/File Photo)

Some analysts say the violence is now also being driven by wider economic woes, such as high inflation and shrinking reserves of foreign exchange.

"Our protest will continue," Sarwar Tushar, who joined a march in the capital and sustained minor injuries when it was violently dispersed by police, told AFP.

"We want the immediate resignation of Sheikh Hasina. The government is responsible for the killings."

Student protesters stormed a jail in the central Bangladeshi district of Narsingdi and freed its inmates before setting the facility on fire, a police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"I don't know the number of inmates, but it would be in the hundreds," he added.

At least 52 people were killed in the capital on Friday, according to a list drawn up by the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and seen by AFP.

Police fire was the cause of more than half of the deaths reported so far this week, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the attacks on student protesters were "shocking and unacceptable".

"There must be impartial, prompt and exhaustive investigations into these attacks, and those responsible held to account," he said in a statement.

The UN's human rights chief said the attacks on student protesters were "shocking and unacceptable".(Reuters: Mohammad Ponir Hossain)

The capital's police force earlier said protesters had on Thursday torched, vandalised and carried out "destructive activities" on numerous police and government offices.

Among them was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of incensed students stormed the premises and set fire to a building.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP that officers had arrested Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, one of the top leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Ms Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Ms Hasina's government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police stepped up efforts to bring the deteriorating law and order situation under control.

"This is an eruption of the simmering discontent of a youth population built over years," Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University, told AFP.

"The job quotas became the symbol of a system which is rigged and stacked against them by the regime."

AFP