Candidates of eight government banks and financial institutions yesterday demonstrated across the country demanding cancellation of Friday's “controversial” recruitment tests and holding the exams afresh for all the candidates instead of just some.

Several hundred candidates, under the banner of "General Students" formed an hour-long human chain in front of the National Museum in the capital.b

Police beat up number of candidates, who wanted to march towards Bangladesh Bank (BB) Office in Motijheel from Dainik Bangla area to submit a memorandum to its governor, leaving several candidates injured.

Following Friday's demonstrations, the Bankers' Selection Committee had declared that the recruitment tests would be held on January 20 but only for the 5,600 candidates who could not take the exams at Government Bangla College and Hazrat Shah Ali Mohila College in Mirpur due to seat shortage and mismanagement. However, more than 2,13,000 who sat for the exams would not have to retake it.

Amid the on-going protest, chief executives of 14 state-run banks and financial institutions, including Sonali, Rupali and Janata, decided to hold an emergency meeting with BB Governor Fazle Kabir today, Md Mosharraf Hossain Khan, member secretary of Bankers' Selection Committee told The Daily Star yesterday.

The 100-mark MCQ test, held at 61 exam centres in Dhaka to fill up 1,663 posts, was mired in mismanagement, including no seat plans, shortage of seats, use of mobile phones by examinees and question paper leaks.

The demonstrators yesterday again threatened to take the issue to the court if their demands are not met soon. Police detained two candidates but released them around an hour later.

"We told police that we want to submit a memorandum to the governor, but they did not listen to us. Instead, they started charging baton on us,” Nasir Uddin Morshed, a member of the committee, told this newspaper.

However, a delegation later managed to submit the memorandum.

"We wanted to meet the member secretary of Bankers' Selection Committee Mosharraf to talk about the issue, but he did not meet us," said Morshed.

The demonstrators also demanded reform in the Bankers' Selection Committee as  such incidents of mismanagement and irregularities had occurred before during previous recruitment tests.

They will observe a sit-in programme in Shahbagh from 10:00am today.

Candidates also organised several protest rallies and human chains in Rajshahi, Chittagong, Jessore and Rangpur.651565656456453456