The son of Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday urged the country's security forces to block any takeover from her rule as hundreds of thousands of protesters demanded she quit. 

"Your duty is to keep our people safe and our country safe and to uphold the constitution," US-based Sajeeb Wazed Joy said in a post on Facebook, reports AFP.

Joy, who is also an information and communications technology advisor to Hasina, warned progress made by Bangladesh would be threatened if she were forced out.

"Everything of our development and progress will vanish. Bangladesh would not be able to come back from there," he said.  

"I don't want that and you also do not want that," he added. "Myself, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, will not let that happen as long as I can."

His warning comes as Bangladesh's army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman was set to address the nation, a military spokesman told AFP without giving further details.

bd-pratidin/GR