Yunus: I will help make students’ dream for Bangladesh come true

“Law and order is the first one so that people can sit down or get to work,” Prof Yunus says.

Monday saw the first glimmers of progress as officers returned to the streets. It is a first step, but security is far from the only problem.

The government entirely “disappeared” after Sheikh Hasina fled the country, Prof Yunus says.

What was left behind after 15 years of increasingly authoritarian rule is “a mess, complete mess”.

“Even the government, what they did, whatever they did, just simply doesn’t make sense to me… They didn’t have any idea what administration is all about.”

And yet in the face of the chaos is “lots of hope”, Prof Yunus emphasises.

“We are here: a fresh new face for them, for the country… Because finally, this moment, the monster is gone. So this is excitement.”

Reform is key, according to Prof Yunus. It was a simple demand for reform of a quota system which reserved some public sector jobs for the relatives of war heroes, who fought for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, that sparked the protest movement in the first place.

But it was the brutal and deadly crackdown by security services which followed that saw it grow into demands for Sheikh Hasina to stand aside.