Hasina Wazed's son urges security forces to block 'any unelected government'

The son of Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed on Monday urged the country’s security forces to block any takeover from her rule as hundreds of thousands of protesters demanded she quit.

“Your duty is to keep our people safe and our country safe and to uphold the constitution,” US-based Sajeeb Wazed Joy said in a post on Facebook.

“It means don’t allow any unelected government to come in power for one minute, it is your duty.”

Joy, who is also an information and communications technology advisor to Hasina Wazed, warned progress made by Bangladesh would be threatened if she were forced out.

“Everything of our development and progress will vanish. Bangladesh would not be able to come back from there,” he said.

“I don’t want that and you also do not want that,” he added. “Myself, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, will not let that happen as long as I can.”

His warning comes as Bangladesh’s army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman is set to address the nation, a military spokesman told AFP without giving further details.

Rallies that began last month against civil service job quotas have escalated into some of the worst unrest of Hasina’s 15-year rule and shifted into wider calls for the 76-year-old to resign.

A senior advisor to Hasina told AFP Monday that the resignation of the embattled leader was a “possibility” after being questioned as to whether she would quit.

“The situation is such that this is a possibility, but I don’t know how it will happen,” the aide close to the premier said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The military declared an emergency in January 2007 after widespread political unrest and installed a caretaker government for two years.