Bangladesh has announced the imposition of a curfew and the deployment of military forces after police failed to quell days of deadly unrest that has spread throughout the country.

This week’s clashes between student demonstrators and police have killed at least 110 people, and pose a momentous challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic government after 15 years in office.

The Dhaka Medical College Hospital received 27 dead bodies between 5pm and 7pm, local time, on Friday.

Local police have not issued a casualty toll.

“The rising death toll is a shocking indictment of the absolute intolerance shown by the Bangladeshi authorities to protest and dissent,” Babu Ram Pant, the deputy regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International, says.

“The government has decided to impose a curfew and deploy the military in aid of the civilian authorities,” Ms Hasina’s press secretary, Nayeemul Islam Khan, told AFP.

He added that the curfew would take immediate effect. 

Members of the military were given orders to shoot on sight if needed.

Police in the capital, Dhaka, earlier took the drastic step of banning all public gatherings for the day — a first since protests began — in an effort to forestall more violence.

“We’ve banned all rallies, processions and public gatherings in Dhaka today,” police chief Habibur Rahman told AFP, adding the move was necessary to ensure “public safety”.

That, however, did not stop another round of confrontations between police and protesters around the sprawling megacity of 20 million people, despite an internet shutdown aimed at frustrating the organisation of rallies.