DHAKA (AFP) — Nine Bangladeshi students accused of inciting campus unrest last August were released from jail after hundreds of people staged protests demanding their freedom, police said.
The students were arrested in August over nationwide campus violence that left at least one person dead and hundreds injured.
"Nine students have been released after the government dropped charges," jailer Shafiqul Islam said Wednesday. "There are now no more students detained over last August's unrest."
Hundreds of supporters garlanded the students, who were released in batches, after they arrived at Dhaka University from jail. Their release followed two days of demonstrations by students calling for their liberty.
The freeing of the group was an apparent effort at reconciliation by the military-backed government in the country which is under emergency rule.
On Tuesday, President Iajuddin Ahmed pardoned three Dhaka University professors hours after they were sentenced to two years in jail on charges of stoking the campus demonstrations.
The August protests erupted after students accused soldiers of beating them up at Dhaka University and spread across the country.
The government arrested 14 academics and dozens of students from Dhaka and Rajshahi universities in the west of Bangladesh on charges of inciting violence and violating emergency rule. All have since been freed.
The emergency government came to power on January 12, 2007 following months of strikes and rioting by rival supporters of the country's two main political parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League.
The government has promised to clean up the country's notoriously corrupt political landscape before holding fresh elections in late 2008.
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