Sixteen years ago, in the broad daylight of August 21, Islamist militants launched an atrocious grenade attack on a rally of the erstwhile opposition Awami League at Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka. The barbaric onslaught that left 24 dead and more than 300 injured was carried out in accordance with a plan hatched by some high ranking persons of the then BNP-led government who allegedly conspired to annihilate their political rivals, including their prime target Sheikh Hasina. The incident took place when Sheikh Hasina was addressing a rally protesting the Sylhet blasts with a call “to end the rule of the government that inspires bomb attacks.” Sheikh Hasina called for the rally to make the nation stand united and fight the menace of the growing militancy and terrorism.
The irony was that the anti-militancy protesters themselves became victims of the country’s most gruesome militant attack masterminded by then BNP-Jamaat government. The attack was designed with an aim to kill Sheikh Hasina apparently for her stance against religious extremism, which had mushroomed under the patronisation of the then BNP-Jamaat government.
After the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most other members of his family on Aug 15, 1975, the grenade attack targeting his daughter Sheikh Hasina is the biggest hit on the Awami League, the party which led the nation in the Liberation War.
However, Sheikh Hasina survived the gristly attack narrowly as supporters and leaders protected her by forming a human shield around her. It is rare for any of the political leaders around the world that his or her followers is receiving grenade splinters on themselves sacrificing their lives. It was a reflection of great love and respect that saved Sheikh Hasina.
The attack took place at around 5:22pm. Hasina had just ended her speech pronouncing “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu” when a grenade exploded two yards from the makeshift stage on a truck she was standing. A shower of grenades followed in the next one and half minutes, with a total of 13 explosions that ripped through the rally premises. Top AL leaders including Suranjit, Ivy, Zafarullah, Razzak, Rahmatullah and Sultan Mohammad Mansur were caught in the midst of fleeing supporters as the area reverberated with explosions.
Reportedly, militants of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji), with links to several serving ministers and officials of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and top BNP-Jamaat leaders, carried out the attack. What happened immediately after the grenade blasts? Police lobbed tear gas shells on the traumatized people. No ambulance was allowed to take the injured persons to hospital. Police did not take any action to arrest the grenade attack perpetrators who fled in a waiting ambulance. Rather, they were found busy erasing the evidences. A few days later, a drama started–arresting Joj Miah, an innocent poor man of a remote village, in connection with the gruesome grenade attacks.
During the BNP-Jamaat regime, the investigators were trying to divert the probe to a wrong direction to save the real culprits. Media reports brought to public attention the cooked-up story of Joj Mia by the then CID officials to derail the investigation.
It is perturbing to note that eighteen of the 49 convicts in the August 21 grenade attack cases are still at large and police have been able to know the whereabouts of only eight of them. We hope fugitive convicts in the August 21 grenade attack cases, who are hiding abroad, will be brought back home in no time to execute the verdict against them. We expect the government will devise concrete actions to ensure strict penalty for the perpetrators as it did in terms of bringing war criminals to justice. All the perpetrators of the 21st grenade attack must get the punishment they deserve.
Sayeed Hossain Shuvro is Editorial Assistant, Bangladesh Post
