Bangladesh student protesters call for new government under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus

Bangladesh student protest coordinators called for the formation of a new interim government with Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus as its chief adviser, according to a video released by the coordinators on Facebook early on Tuesday.

This demand followed after Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh army chief plans to meet the protest coordinators at 12pm local time (0600 GMT) on Tuesday, the army separately said in a statement, a day after Zaman announced Hasina's resignation in a televised address and said an interim government would be formed.

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Yunus, 84, and his Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace prize for work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans of under $100 to the rural poor of Bangladesh but he was indicted by a court in June on charges of embezzlement that he denied.

Yunus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zaman said he had held talks with leaders of major political parties - excluding Hasina's long-ruling Awami League - to discuss the way ahead and was due to hold talks with the president Mohammed Shahabuddin .

An interim government will hold elections as soon as possible after consulting all parties and stakeholders, President Shahabuddin said in a televised address late on Monday.

He also said that it was "unanimously decided" to immediately release the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson and Hasina's nemesis, Begum Khaleda Zia, who was convicted in a graft case in 2018 but moved to a hospital a year later as her health deteriorated. She has denied the charges against her.

A BNP spokesperson said on Monday that Zia, 78, was in hospital and "will clear all charges legally and come out soon".

Hasina, 76, had ruled since winning a decades-long power struggle with Zia in 2009. She landed at a military airfield, Hindon, near Delhi on Monday after leaving Dhaka, two Indian government officials told Reuters, adding that India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met her there.

• Bangladesh PM Hasina resigns, flies off to India in military helicopter