Students of Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University blocked Dhaka-Tangail highway for around two hours on Saturday, demanding the cancellation of the quota system in public jobs.

The students set up barricades at Nagarjalfai Bypass point on the highway around 10 am and were forced to remove it around 12 pm following police intervention.

The blockade halted vehicular movement on both sides of the highway, creating in a massive traffic gridlock and causing immense suffering to the passengers.

Thousands of Dhaka University (DU) students took to the streets on 1 July, protesting the restoration of the quota system in the government jobs and since then, the protest spread out all public and private universities across the country.

Meanwhile, on June 5, 2024, the High Court declared illegal the government decision that in 2018 cancelled the 30 percent quota system for the freedom fighters' children in the civil service of ninth to 13th grades (first and second classes of jobs).

Protesting the HC declaration, the students of the country’s almost all public and private universities got agitated and started waging protests demanding restoration of the circular issued in 2018 revoking the quota system in the government jobs.

In line with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s announcement, the government on 4 October 2018 issued a circular revoking the 10 percent women quota, 30 percent freedom fighters’ quota and 10 percent district quota for first and second class government jobs.

Later, Ohidul Islam, president of Central Command Council of Children and Generations of Freedom Fighters, filed a writ petition with the High Court challenging the legality of the circular.

Following the writ petition, the HC, in its verdict, declared the circular illegal on 5 June 2018.

Since then, the anti-quota movement started gaining momentum among the students of different public and private universities across the country.