Protests put Bangladesh on the edge of a precipice

The image of a scrawny young man with a wispy beard, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, standing defiantly amid a bed of rocks and stones with his arms spread apart has burnt into the collective psyche of most Bangladeshis.

On July 16, Abu Sayed, a student at Begum Rokeya University in Bangladesh’s Rangpur district, was shot in the chest by a policeman. He fell to the ground dead, a metre-long baton clutched in his right hand.