Dhaka: Police on Wednesday foiled a bid of job seekers to march towards the Public Administration Ministry to submit a memorandum demanding reforms of the quota system in government recruitment tests, including BCS.

Several thousand job seekers, including students of different universities, brought out a procession from Shahbagh intersection around 11am as part of their scheduled programme.

When they reached the High Court intersection, police intercepted them.

Later, the demonstrators took position at the intersection, blocking the road.

The law enforcers charged baton and lobbed teargas shells to disperse them, leaving seven people injured.

They also detained three demonstrators—Sohrab Hossain, a student of Information and Library Science Department, Jahir, a Masters student of Business Administration and Arif, a History department student of DU.

Protesting the police action, the demonstrators declared candle lighting program across the country on Sunday.

The job-seekers have been on a movement to press home their five-point demand that include introduction of unified age limit in government jobs, review of quota system in government recruitment process, including Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) examination, stopping taking benefit by job-seekers under the same quota, filling vacant posts from merit list if the candidates from quota are not found and fixation of 10 percent quota instead of existing 56 percent.