Violence-sparked job quotas are reversed by Bangladesh court.

Dhaka: On Sunday, Bangladesh’s top court cut back, but did not abolish, contentious civil service hiring rules that provoked national police-university student confrontations that killed 151 people.

This week, a protest against politicized admission quotas for sought-after government posts turned into Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s worst unrest.

After riot police failed to restore calm, soldiers are patrolling Bangladeshi cities, and a nationwide internet outage since Thursday has severely limited information flow.

The Supreme Court was scheduled to rule next month on the validity of the recently reintroduced plan that reserves more than half of government posts for select candidates, but raised its ruling as civil unrest escalated.

It declared a lower bench’s order last month to revive the scheme “illegal”, Bangladeshi Attorney General A.M. Amin Uddin told AFP.

After the judgment, Shah Monjurul Hoque, a lawyer, told AFP that the court instructed protesting students “to return to class”.