Bangladesh protesters try to demolish home of Hasina’s father

DHAKA: Bangladeshi protesters on Wednesday brought excavator diggers to the former home of the father of ousted autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, in an attempt to flatten the building.

Her father, Bangladesh’s first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is widely viewed as an independence hero, but his relation to Hasina has turned him into a symbol of hate for many.

Some protesters arrived at his home, which had been turned into a museum, armed with hammers to smash down its walls, with crowds cheering as fires torched the building.

The home had already been badly damaged during the student-led revolution last year that ended Hasina’s 15 years of autocratic rule. On Wednesday, six months to the day since Hasina fled by helicopter to old ally India on August 5 -- capping an uprising that claimed hundreds of lives -- student protesters again stormed the compound in the capital Dhaka.

Protests were triggered in response to reports that 77-year-old Hasina, who has defied an arrest warrant to face trial for massacres, would appear in Facebook broadcast from exile.

Hundreds of protesters gathered at Rahman´s home after a call by Hasnat Abdullah, convener of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, the protest group credited with sparking the uprising against Hasina.