More than 3,000 people were arrested in five days till Wednesday, July 24, in cases filed over the violence and anarchy centring the quota reform protests, as the authorities went on the offensive to gain some control over the situation. Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrested 1,380 people in 154 cases filed with different police stations in the city over the violence and sabotage in the capital over the last few days. Many of the arrestees were on remand and divulging important information about the financing behind the sabotage and those who gave the directives for the violence, according to DMP joint commissioner.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Wednesday claimed that at least 2,000 opposition leaders and activists were arrested. BNP standing committee members Nazrul Islam Khan and Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, Gono Odhikar Parishad president Nurul Haque Nur, Jamaat leaders Golam Parwar and Abdullah Mohammad Taher, and Bangladesh Jatiya Party Chairman and former MP Barrister Andaleeve Rahman Partho.

The US, UK, Canada, and the UN all released statements expressing concern over the situation. The government first assured foreign diplomats that the situation would normalise within a short time, during a briefing at state guesthouse Jamuna. Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud told them that the government regretted the disruption to daily life caused by the violence. Some diplomats condemned the violence and expressed concern over the internet blackout, according to diplomatic sources. Some 60 foreign diplomats and heads of international aid agencies, were present.

Later in the week, accompanied by delegates from 49 foreign missions and 23 ambassadors, Mahmud visited various government facilities in Dhaka that were damaged during the unrest. The tour was aimed at demonstrating the "truth" and illustrating the "extent of damage," the foreign minister said. At the end of the day he announced that his ministry has formally communicated with foreign diplomats, urging them not to make "any public statement" about the student protests.

Many of the 826 prisoners who broke free from Narsingdi Central Jail on July 19, in one of the most incredible and potentially dangerous incidents during the protests, started returning over the course of the week. Kazi Nazmul Islam, president of Narsingdi Lawyers Samity, reported that at least 136 prisoners surrendered to the court within a day. Another 156 did so till Wednesday. Five days earlier, as the quota protests raged on throughout the nation, thousands of people marched on Narsingdi Central Jail, set fires, and broke the padlocks on prison cells, allowing all its inmates, including nine 'militants', to flee.

After the guards' retreat, attackers looted 85 firearms and thousands of bullets after breaking into the prison arsenal. Alongside the fire at BTV, the damage to metrorail stations in Mirpur-10 and Kazipara, and the bedlam on campuses, this was one of the incidents that convinced the government the situation had gotten out of hand, and it was time to call in the Army.

The United Arab Emirates handed lengthy prison sentences to 57 Bangladeshi expatriates for protesting against their home government while in the Gulf country where demonstrations are banned, state media reported. On Monday (July 22), the official Emirati news agency WAM said three Bangladeshi expatriates were sentenced to life, 53 others to 10 years in prison and one to 11 years for participating in alleged protests.

The defendants had "gathered and incited riots in several streets across the UAE on Friday," WAM said, adding they would be deported after the completion of their prison terms. The charges follow a swift investigation that was ordered on Friday, according to WAM. A witness confirmed "that the defendants gathered and organised large-scale marches in several streets of the UAE in protest against decisions made by the Bangladeshi government," it added. The UAE is populated mostly by expatriates, many of them south Asians who work as labourers.