San Francisco Frontiers - Whitewashing the past: Students give Bangladesh a makeover

Students who led the weeks of protests that toppled autocratic premier Sheikh Hasina are back on the streets to give the capital Dhaka a makeover.

They are whitewashing walls to clear politically charged graffiti accusing her of murder and demanding her resignation at the height of this month's unrest.

In their place, they are daubing elaborate and colourful murals hinting at widespread faith among Bangladeshis of a better tomorrow.

"We want to reform our Bangladesh," Abir Hossain, 21, said as he and half a dozen classmates decorating a kerbside wall with the image of a bird flying out of its cage.

"We're feeling proud," he told AFP. "The bird is now free. We're independent now."

Students in paint-smeared shirts chatted and laughed with friends as they renovated the visual landscape of Shabagh, a leafy central neighbourhood that hosts the elite Dhaka University.

Colourful murals exhorted the public to "destroy the iron doors of prison" and celebrated Bangladesh's "rebirth".

"When the protests started, there were a lot of negative things written here," Fiyaz Hossain, 21, told AFP.

"We are erasing them... so people younger than us don't say them," he added.

"We're writing other things that they can say in the future."

- 'Shoot me in the chest' -

Graffiti denouncing "Killer Hasina" proliferated on walls around Dhaka as the protests against her 15-rule intensified, and it is disappearing just as quickly.

"We want to deliver a message to the public that we have liberated this country from a dictator, and now we have to work together," Nafisa Sara, 19, told AFP during a quick break from the paintbrush.

"The people will see that if the students and all of us work together, we can build the country," she added.

But the impromptu public works project also shows that rancour towards the former leader remains widespread.

More than 450 people were killed in the unrest that ended last week when Hasina abruptly resigned and fled to India.

One of the murals depicts Abu Sayeed, a student shot dead in the northern city of Rangpur, the first student slain in a police crackdown on protests.

Footage of Sayeed's last moments has been shown repeatedly on Bangladeshi television since Hasina's departure breathed new life into a repressed media landscape.

The painting shows an image that has now been etched onto the national consciousness: the 25-year-old stretching his arms out wide in a defiant confrontation with riot police.

It is captioned with his reported last words: "Shoot me in the chest".

A Dhaka court on Tuesday ruled that a criminal investigation for murder could proceed against Hasina, two of her senior lieutenants and four police officers for a separate police killing during the unrest.

The caretaker government that took office after her departure has yet to comment on whether it supports the case, or whether Hasina should return from exile to face some form of justice.

Student groups have in recent days held rallies to demand just that.

"She must be brought back to the country," said Mohiuddin Rony, 25, "and she must face trial".

E.Cruz--SFF