It was 5:22pm on August 21 in 2004 when the whole Bangabandhu Avenue was shaken with horrific grenade blasts just after the chief guest of a rally concluded her speech. Just after the then leader of the opposition in parliament and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina concluded her speech pronouncing ‘Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu’, the first blast of a series of grenades was heard.
I, along with my senior colleague, SM Mizanur Rahman, was covering the opposition leader Sheikh Hasina’s rally as reporters of Bangladesh Today on the day.
The rally was organised protesting the Sylhet blasts with a call ‘to end the rule of the government that inspires bomb attacks’. Sheikh Hasina was addressing the rally from a truck.
The sounds were so terrifying and super loud, they seemed like thunderclaps one after another, at Bangabandhu Avenue. Like other leaders and workers and journalists from different print and electronic media, we also ran amid the blasts and billowing smoke. But at one stage, we could not understand what to do during the time.
The grenades were being thrown from the rooftops of a high rise building situated in front of the Awami League’s central party office. We found many leaders and workers of Awami League and journalists groaning. Besides, we also saw many of them lying in pools of blood in front of Bangabandhu Avenue indiscriminately. Immediately after the attacks, both the dead and injured AL men and many journalists were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital leaving the whole city in a horrific situation.
History’s barbaric and gruesome grenade attack was launched as per a blueprint to kill Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina during the rule of BNP-Jamaat alliance government. The August 21 grenade attack was a part of conspiracy that started before August 15, 1975 when Bangabandhu was killed to reverse the country’s Independence.
The then opposition leader and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other front-ranking leaders of AL escaped the carnage. But 24 leaders and workers of AL, its associate bodies including the then Mahila AL president Ivy Rahman, wife of late President Zillur Rahman, were killed. Besides, over 400 others suffered splinter injuries in the attack and many of them were crippled for life.
The visible attempt to frustrate the case by the then BNP-led regime prompted the subsequent interim government to order a fresh investigation into the case. According to witnesses, at least 13 explosions took place within one and a half minutes and all the grenades were hurled on the truck from which Sheikh Hasina was addressing the rally.
While grenades were being hurled indiscriminately targeting Sheikh Hasina, her party leaders, activists and bodyguards saved her by sacrificing their own lives and took her away from the scene. The attacks left at least 25 leaders and activists dead and several hundred others injured. Immediately after the attacks were launched, the entire situation at the rally place changed. Smoke engulfed the entire area. There was blood everywhere. Torn shoes and clothing lay scattered here and there. In the meantime, transport movement in the area was stopped as it became difficult to rush the injured to hospitals.
