Pakistan on Wednesday expressed solidarity with the people of Bangladesh and hoped for a “peaceful and swift return to normalcy” after deadly protests led to the end of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s rule two days ago.

The statement comes as a caretaker government is expected to be formed under the leadership of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus after student protest leaders asked him to do so.

The movement that toppled Hasina rose out of protests against public sector job quotas for families of veterans of Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war, seen by critics as a means to reserve jobs for allies of the ruling Awami League party.

“The government and people of Pakistan stand in solidarity with the people of Bangladesh, sincerely hoping for a peaceful and swift return to normalcy,” the Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement.

“We are confident that the resilient spirit and unity of the Bangladeshi people will lead them towards a harmonious future,” it added.

Meanwhile, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan stood with the people of Bangladesh and appreciated their determination and resilience in standing up against the previous regime marred by corruption.

To a question, he said the problem in Bangladesh was not the economic conditions but division, hatred and the quota system.

He expressed hope that normalcy would return to Bangladesh and its journey towards prosperity would continue.

More than 400 people have died since July as security forces sought to quell the unrest but the protests grew and Hasina finally resigned and fled aboard a helicopter on Monday after the military turned against her.

Hasina flew to India and is staying at a safe house outside New Delhi.

Bangladesh’s army chief General Wakeruz Zaman announced on Monday that the military would form an interim government, saying it was “time to stop the violence”.

The next day, President Mohammed Shahabuddin dissolved parliament — a key demand of the student leaders and the major opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP), which has demanded elections within three months.

Hasina’s arch-rival, BNP chairperson and former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, was also freed from years of house arrest.

Yunus calls for ‘calm’ as interim govt to be finalised

Meanwhile, protest leaders have said they expect members of an interim government, led by Yunus, to be finalised today.

The army chief said the new interim government was likely to be sworn in on Thursday evening after Yunus returned to the country.

“We are trying our best to hold the oath-taking ceremony tomorrow,” the general said in a televised briefing. “We might do it at around 8pm (1400 GMT). Around 400 hundred people will likely be present.”

Bangladesh’s president appointed Yunus as the head of the interim government late on Tuesday and said the remaining members need to be finalised soon to overcome the current crisis and pave the way for elections.

Yunus said that he was looking forward to helping the country overcome its current turbulence.

“I’m looking forward to going back home, see what’s happening and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble we are in,” he told reporters before boarding a flight at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport for Dubai where he was to connect to Dhaka.

He headed for the boarding zone pushing a small wheeled piece of luggage, waving goodbye.

Yunus called for calm and urged people to use the opportunity to build a better nation.

“I fervently appeal to everybody to stay calm. Please refrain from all kinds of violence,” the Nobel-winning microfinance pioneer said in a statement, a day ahead of his expected return to the country from Europe.

“Be calm and get ready to build the country. If we take the path of violence everything will be destroyed.”

“This is our beautiful country with lots of exciting possibilities,” he added. “We must protect and make it a wonderful country for us and for our future generations.”

“I congratulate the brave students who took the lead in making our Second Victory Day possible, and to the people for giving your total support to them,” Yunus added.

“Let us make the best use of our new victory. Let us not let this slip away because of our mistakes.” He has said he wants to hold elections “within a few months”.

Separately, Yunus told the Financial Times today that he was not seeking an elected role or appointment beyond the interim period.

“It is critical that trust in government be restored quickly,” the Nobel winner said.

“We need calm, we need a road map to new elections and we need to get to work to prepare for new leadership,” Yunus told the newspaper.

A court also overturned a conviction against Yunus, a day before the Nobel winner is set to return to lead a caretaker government.

“Professor Muhammad Yunus and three of his colleagues have been acquitted of labour charges,” one of his lawyers, Khaja Tanvir Ahmed, told AFP.

“The court earlier this year sentenced them to six months in prison.”

He was sentenced in January for the labour charge, but immediately bailed pending appeal and later travelled abroad.

All four had denied the charges and, with courts accused of rubber-stamping decisions by ousted leader Sheikh Hasina’s government, the case was criticised as politically motivated by watchdogs including Amnesty International.

“The labour court granted an appeal, and acquitted them,” Ahmed said.

President Shahabuddin has also recommended that a veteran of the war should be nominated to the interim government.

Nahid Islam, one of the main leaders of the student movement, told reporters after the president’s announcement that students have recommended 10-15 members for the interim government in an initial list they shared with the president.

Islam said he expects interim government members to be finalised in 24 hours starting from late Tuesday evening. The students’ recommendations for the government include civil society members and also student representatives, Islam said.

Meanwhile, the newly appointed police chief offered an apology for the conduct of officers during deadly protests and vowed an “impartial” probe into the killings.

“We are committed to conduct a fair and impartial investigation into every recent killing of students, common people and the police”, Inspector General of Police Md. Mainul Islam told reporters.

“In the current protests … our previous responsible officials were not able to fulfil their duties as per the expectations of the countrymen,” he added, a day after he was appointed following the ouster of the prime minister.

“I, as the chief of police, apologise on behalf of the Bangladesh Police for that.”

He also said he had asked police units to end their strike and return to duty on Thursday.

Separately, hundreds of people gathered at a rally in Dhaka by the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP), whose leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia, 78, was freed from house arrest by the president on Tuesday.

Zia had feuded and alternated power with rival Hasina, 76, since the early 1990s and she was convicted for graft in 2018 but called the charges politically motivated.

Key political leader Tarique Rahman, acting president of the BNP, spoke via video broadcast to a giant rally of supporters in Dhaka.

Rahman, who went into exile in London during Hasina’s rule, urged for elections to be swiftly held.

“The vote should be held as quickly as possible,” Rahman said, also urging calm. Since Hasina fled, police reported mobs launching revenge attacks on her allies.

“Don’t take laws into your hands,” he told BNP supporters.

Normalcy slowly began returning after Monday’s chaos but protests broke at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Bank in Dhaka on Wednesday when hundreds of officials from the central bank forced four of its deputy governors to resign over alleged corruption, two sources at the bank said.

The bank did not immediately comment.

Most schools and university campuses in Dhaka and other cities that shut in mid-July due to the protests, reopened while people took buses and other transport to offices and banks. The garment factories that had been shut for days also began opening on Wednesday.

India, West urge ‘calm’

India, which has strong cultural and business ties with Bangladesh, evacuated all non-essential staff and their families from its embassy and four consulates in the country, two Indian government sources said.

India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar told parliament on Tuesday that New Delhi had repeatedly “counselled restraint and urged situation to be defused through dialogue”.

Stating he was “deeply concerned till law and order is visibly restored” in Bangladesh, Jaishankar said India had assured Hasina of its help and given her time to decide the future course of action, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported quoting sources.

India also said what was “particularly worrying was that minorities, their businesses, and temples also came under attack at multiple locations”.

Chaotic violence on Monday had seen more than 100 people killed — the deadliest day since protests began in early July.

A further 10 people were killed on Tuesday, taking the total death toll of the protests to at least 432, according to an AFP tally based on police, government officials, and doctors at hospitals.

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council has said 200-300 mainly Hindu homes and businesses have been vandalised since Monday, and 15-20 Hindu temples were damaged.

The student leaders also said that they had received reports of attacks on minority groups, including Hindu temples, in the Muslim-majority country, and urged restraint as this could undermine their movement.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had stressed the importance of a “peaceful, orderly and democratic transition”, his spokesman said.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed that call. Similarly, former colonial ruler Britain, along with the United States, had urged “calm”.