Students Against Discrimination staged nationwide rallies last month that ended in a police crackdown and the deaths of at least 206 people
Students Against Discrimination staged nationwide rallies last month that ended in a police crackdown and the deaths of at least 206 people AFP

Bangladesh police freed six student leaders on Thursday whose campaign against civil service job quotas sparked deadly nationwide unrest, as the government looked to calm tensions and forestall fresh demonstrations.

Students Against Discrimination staged nationwide rallies last month that ended in a police crackdown and the deaths of at least 206 people, according to an AFP count of police and hospital data.

The group's leadership were among thousands picked up in the police dragnet that followed some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's 15-year tenure.

"All six quota movement coordinators have been returned to their families this afternoon," deputy commissioner Junaed Alam Sarkar said.

Principal leader Nahid Islam and two others were forcibly discharged from a hospital in the capital Dhaka last Friday by plainclothes detectives and taken to an unknown location.

His father Badrul Islam confirmed to AFP that Nahid Islam had returned home early Thursday afternoon but did not give any more details.

Three others were detained in the following days, with the government saying they had been held for their own safety.

Justice minister Anisul Huq told AFP on Thursday that all six had volunteered to be in police custody.

"They came willingly. They said they wanted to go. They are allowed to return to their parents," he said.

Hasina's government restored order after deploying troops, imposing a curfew and shutting down the mobile internet network across the country of 170 million for 11 days.

More than 10,000 people were arrested in the wake of the unrest, according to Bangladeshi media.

Small and scattered protests resumed in cities around Bangladesh this week after other members of Students Against Discrimination ended a moratorium on demonstrations.

They vowed to restart their campaign after the government ignored a Monday deadline for their leaders to be freed.

"Their detention was arbitrary and unlawful. There was growing national and international criticism," University of Oslo researcher Mubashar Hasan told AFP.

He said the release of the student leaders signalled the government was looking to "de-escalate tensions" with the protest movement.

Demonstrations broke out last month over the reintroduction of a quota scheme -- since scaled back by Bangladesh's top court -- that reserved more than half of all government jobs for certain groups.

With around 18 million young Bangladeshis out of work, according to government figures, the move upset graduates facing an acute employment crisis.

Critics say the quota system was used to stack public jobs with loyalists to the ruling Awami League.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Ministers accused opposition parties of stirring up unrest, which saw arson and vandalism attacks by crowds against government buildings and dozens of police posts.

The government enacted a ban on Thursday on Jamaat-e-Islaami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, that outlawed the organisation and prohibited it from staging any public gatherings.

The protests last month had remained largely peaceful until attacks on demonstrators by police and pro-government student groups.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell this week condemned the police clampdown that followed for "excessive and lethal force against protesters and others".

A human rights law firm wrote to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Thursday on behalf of Australia's Bangladeshi diaspora seeking a preliminary examination into the violence.

"There is no evidence that the Bangladeshi Government will properly investigate the situation itself in an independent or thorough manner," the brief said.

Any person or group can make a request to the ICC but it is not obliged to take up a case.