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Lille Airport in Northern France Evacuated Due to Bomb Scare

(FILES) Check-in counters at Airport Lille-Lesquin, northern France are closed on April 15, 2010 as a result of the volcano eruption in Iceland. Six airports across France were evacuated on October 18, 2023 after emailed "threats of attack", a police source told AFP. (Photo by PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP)
(FILES) Check-in counters at Airport Lille-Lesquin, northern France are closed on April 15, 2010 as a result of the volcano eruption in Iceland. Six airports across France were evacuated on October 18, 2023 after emailed "threats of attack", a police source told AFP. (Photo by PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP)
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Lille Airport in Northern France Evacuated Due to Bomb Scare

(FILES) Check-in counters at Airport Lille-Lesquin, northern France are closed on April 15, 2010 as a result of the volcano eruption in Iceland. Six airports across France were evacuated on October 18, 2023 after emailed "threats of attack", a police source told AFP. (Photo by PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP)
(FILES) Check-in counters at Airport Lille-Lesquin, northern France are closed on April 15, 2010 as a result of the volcano eruption in Iceland. Six airports across France were evacuated on October 18, 2023 after emailed "threats of attack", a police source told AFP. (Photo by PHILIPPE HUGUEN / AFP)

The Lille airport in northern France is being evacuated due to a bomb scare, the airport said on Wednesday on social media platform X.
"State security teams are on site," the airport said.
According to BFM TV, citing police sources, the Toulouse, Nice and Lyon airports were also evacuated on Wednesday due to security alerts, reported Reuters.
France is on its highest state of alert after the Oct. 13 murder of a teacher in a suspected Islamist attack.
On Tuesday, the Palace of Versailles, one of France's main tourist sites, was closed for a few hours, due to its second security scare in four days.

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Bangladesh Says Student Leaders Held for Their Own Safety

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Says Student Leaders Held for Their Own Safety

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladesh said three student leaders had been taken into custody for their own safety after the government blamed their protests against civil service job quotas for days of deadly nationwide unrest.

Students Against Discrimination head Nahid Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were Friday forcibly discharged from hospital and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.

The street rallies organized by the trio precipitated a police crackdown and days of running clashes between officers and protesters that killed at least 201 people, according to an AFP tally of hospital and police data.

Islam earlier this week told AFP he was being treated at the hospital in the capital Dhaka for injuries sustained during an earlier round of police detention.

Police had initially denied that Islam and his two colleagues were taken into custody before home minister Asaduzzaman Khan confirmed it to reporters late on Friday.

"They themselves were feeling insecure. They think that some people were threatening them," he said.

"That's why we think for their own security they needed to be interrogated to find out who was threatening them. After the interrogation, we will take the next course of action."

Khan did not confirm whether the trio had been formally arrested.

Days of mayhem last week saw the torching of government buildings and police posts in Dhaka, and fierce street fights between protesters and riot police elsewhere in the country.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government deployed troops, instituted a nationwide internet blackout and imposed a curfew to restore order.

- 'Carried out raids' -

The unrest began when police and pro-government student groups attacked street rallies organized by Students Against Discrimination that had remained largely peaceful before last week.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location to be tortured before he was released the next morning.

His colleague Asif Mahmud, also taken into custody at the hospital on Friday, told AFP earlier that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Police have arrested at least 4,500 people since the unrest began.

"We've carried out raids in the capital and we will continue the raids until the perpetrators are arrested," Dhaka Metropolitan Police joint commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarker told AFP.

"We're not arresting general students, only those who vandalized government properties and set them on fire."