Bangladeshi students reject PM's olive branch after protests.

Students in Bangladesh resisted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's offer of amnesty on Thursday, pledging to carry on their statewide rallies against civil service hiring practices and demanding justice for the seven people who were slain in the demonstrations.

The Hasina administration has imposed an indefinite shutdown on colleges and institutions and intensified measures to quell weeks-long protests calling for equitable access to public sector employment.

While demonstrators and students supporting the premier's governing Awami League engaged in street combat with rocks and bamboo rods, riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up groups.

In a nationally televised speech, Hasina denounced the "murder" of demonstrators and swore that those guilty, no matter how politically aligned, will face consequences.

However, the primary organization organizing this month's demonstrations, Students Against Discrimination, said that her remarks were false and urged supporters to continue.

One of the protest organizers, Asif Mahmud, told AFP that "it did not reflect the murders and mayhem carried out by her party activists."

Ahead of new protests scheduled for later in the day, the group called for Bangladeshis to observe a nationwide shutdown on Thursday, which would involve closing stores and remaining at home.

The cry was widely heard in the nation's capital, Dhaka, where very few cars were seen on the often congested roadways.

Two days after internet service providers blocked access to Facebook, the primary organizing tool for the protest campaign, residents of Dhaka reported severe mobile internet failures on Thursday.

Police acknowledged that the eighteen-year-old had been murdered by police firearms when they revealed the death of a seventh protestor on Thursday night.

"Rubber bullets struck him," AFP was informed by police inspector Bacchu Mia. "He was brought to the hospital but died before he was admitted." Hundreds of people hurt

Six people were killed on Tuesday, and more than 500 more were hurt in fights around the nation on Wednesday.

Although Hasina did not take blame for the killings in her address, accounts provided to AFP earlier by hospital officials and students indicate that at least some of the victims perished as a result of police using ostensibly non-lethal weaponry during protests.

Video footage from this week's riots, according to rights group Amnesty International, demonstrated that Bangladeshi security personnel had used unlawful force.

Additional fighting occurred during the night, including a skirmish between police and over a thousand demonstrators who set a roadside toll booth on fire in Dhaka's suburbs.

Deputy Police Commissioner Iqbal Hossain told AFP, "We spent the whole night fending off attacks from the protesters." He said that police had finally used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the group.

Protesters are primarily calling for the removal of a lucrative government job quota system, which they claim unfairly favors members of Bangladesh's ruling party.