Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid’s spokesman said the government had decided to impose a nationwide curfew and deploy the army as student-led protests against the quota system in government jobs spread.

Naeemul Islam Khan, the prime minister’s spokesman, told the service that an official decision on the curfew would be made soon.

Three people died in Bangladesh on Friday as police cracked down on violent student-led protests against a quota system for government jobs despite a ban on public gatherings, media reports said.

The protests, the largest since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was re-elected this year, are fuelled by high unemployment among young people, who make up nearly a fifth of the country’s 170 million people.