Bangladesh revises transport law

Bangladesh yesterday promised to introduce the death penalty for deliberate road deaths in a bid to quell more than a week of demonstrations calling for better road safety, as new student-led protests were met with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Over the weekend scores of people were hurt as police fired tear gas and mobs apparently loyal to the government attacked demonstrators, photographers and even the US ambassador’s car. The tens of thousands of teenage school pupils and university students who have paralysed the capital Dhaka and elsewhere for the past nine days -- and torched eight buses -- are pressing for better road safety after a speeding bus killed two teenagers on July 29.

The latest clashes yesterday in the Rampura neighbourhood saw police use tear gas to dispel hundreds of students from a private university, local police chief Rafiqul Islam told AFP. “They tried to set ablaze a police camp. We fired tear gas to disperse them,” he said, adding four police officers were injured.