Unemployed nurses laid siege to the Directorate of Nursing Services at Agargaon in Dhaka since this morning protesting a circular seeking to recruit 3,616 senior nurses.

Some 300 to 400 nurses under the banner of Bangladesh Diploma Bekar (unemployed) Nurses' Association and Bangladesh Basic Graduate Nurses' Society besieged the office around 10:00am.

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"We will continue our programme until we are given an assurance of recruitment based on merit and seniority," said Nahida Akhter Rakhi, general secretary of Bangladesh Basic Graduate Nurses' Society.

The circular frustrated many unemployed nursing graduates who were hoping to be recruited on the basis of their year of graduation, merit and seniority instead.

Earlier on March 30, some 40 persons were allegedly injured after police charged baton, fired teargas canisters, used pepper spray and water cannons to disperse several hundred demonstrating nurses who blocked the capital's Shahbagh intersection.