On Thursday, demonstrators in Bangladesh attacked the headquarters of the state-owned Bangladesh Television and set it on fire, with many employees trapped inside.
Students have been demonstrating for weeks against the quota system in government jobs, but violence has escalated significantly in recent days.
A post on BTV's verified Facebook page said the fire was "catastrophic" and "spreading rapidly."
"We ask for the cooperation of firefighters. There are many people trapped inside," the station said.
Agence France-Presse quoted a BTV official as saying that hundreds of demonstrators stormed the building and set fire to at least 60 cars and office buildings.
"They first burned a police station in Rampura after the police opened fire on them," he said, referring to a neighborhood in the capital, Dhaka.
The Bangladeshi authorities cut off mobile Internet services several times on Thursday for “security” reasons in the wake of the severe violence surrounding student protests.
The students demanded the abolition of the 30% quota allocated to the families of those who fought in the war of independence from Pakistan in 1971. The protesters believe that these quotas led to widespread unemployment in the South Asian country.
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