Thursday will mark the 10 years of the gruesome grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka’s Bangabandhu Avenue that killed 24 people and injured scores.
“It felt like everything was engulfed by fire, my whole body was burning,” said Aleya Ferdous, one of the survivors, calling the horror.
The Awami League leader from Barguna, currently a reserve seat MP, still has some splinters lodged in her body, reminding daily of that that fateful day.
Bangladesh Mohila Awami League President Ivy Rahman and 23 other leaders and activists were killed and over 500 injured in that attack in front of the Awami League headquarters on August 21, 2004.
Investigations revealed that the main target of the attack, which took place when the BNP-Jamaat alliance was in power, was Awami League President Sheikh Hasina.
Further investigations revealed that then BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami coalition diverted the course of the probe.
Former investigators have been charged in court in this connection and are currently standing trial.
Since the investigations begun in 2008, then State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s elder son Tarique Rahman have made the list of accused in the grenade attack case.
The Awami League rally that day, organised to protest terrorism, was intended to kick off with Sheikh Hasina’s speech. But the blasts threw the programme haywire.
Prime Minister Hasina had survived but suffered a permanent hearing loss in one ear.
The grenade blasts killed Ivy Rahman and others, who were was sitting with party supporters in front of the rally stage. Most of the injured had lost their limbs.
President Md Abdul Hamid has termed the Aug 21 attack as a black chapter in the nation’s history.
In a message on the eve of the day, he said the grenade attack was part of the anti-liberation forces’ conspiracy that persisted even after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975.
He expressed his deep respects to the memory of those killed and conveyed his sympathies to the other victims.
In her message, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina remembered with respect the leaders and activists who saved her from the blasts by forming a human shield.
She said, “The attack aimed to frustrate our independence, democracy, peace and development. It also aimed to give killing, conspiracy, militancy, corruption and misrule a permanent shape and destroy the spirit of the Liberation War and make Bangladesh leaderless in the process.
Hasina claimed the then BNP-Jamaat government tried its best to protect the killers and even helped a number of them to flee the country. “Evidence of the incident were also destroyed.”
“Truth cannot be suppressed. Investigations have found that many from the BNP-Jamaat alliance were directly involved in the grisly attack. It is now clear who were sitting in which bhaban and plotted the attack.”
Hasina hoped that killings, terrorism and militancy in the country will end through the trials of the attackers, planners, and patrons of the Aug 21 attack.
Programmes
Like in previous years, the Awami League and its affiliate organisations will hold several programmes to observe the day.
Party chief Sheikh Hasina will begin the programmes at 4pm Thursday by paying tributes at the temporary memorial erected in the memory of the Aug 21 victims in front of the Awami League headquarters at Bangabandhu Avenue.
The ruling party’s affiliates, different political, social, cultural and professionals’ organisations will follow in paying tributes.
The prime minister will then meet the families of the victims and those who were injured in the attack before attending a discussion organised to mark the day.
The victims
Apart from the Awami League’s Women Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman, 23 other party members were killed that day. Among them were party’s Dhaka Metropolitan unit’s adviser Rafiqul Islam.
Sheikh Hasina’s security team member Lance Corporal (retd) Mahbubur Rashid was also killed.
The other victims are: Awami League’s central sub-committee Deputy Secretary Mostak Ahmed Sentu, Women Awami League leaders Sufia Begum and Hasina Mamtaz, Madaripur Juba League leader Liton Munshi, Ratan Sikdar from Narayanganj, Dhaka Mohanagar Rickshaw Shramil League leader Md Hanif, Nazrul Islam College student Mamun Mridha, Juba League leaders Aminul Islam, Atik Sarkar and Shamsuddin Abul Kalam Azad, Swechhasebak League leader Razia Begum and activist Abdul Kuddus Patwari, Shramik League activists Nasir Uddin Sardar, Abul Kashem, Jahid Ali, Momin Ali and Ishaq Miyah.
Hasina was the target
Investigation revealed that the goal of the attack on the anti-terrorism rally was to kill Sheikh Hasina.
The prime minister in her message said she was the target of the attack.
The grenades began exploding, accompanied by gunfire, as Hasina was nearing the end of her speech.
Security personnel and party men formed a human wall around Hasina and got her to her bulletproof car, which took her back to her Dhanmondi home.
The BNP-led government formed a one-member probe committee comprising of High Court Justice Jainul Abedin. Awami League rejected his probe report.
A probe team formed by the Supreme Court Bar Association, led by Kamal Hossain, also issued a report. That report also said Hasina was the prime target of the grenade attacks.
US government agency the FBI and the Interpol came to Dhaka twice to assist in the investigation but left without completing the job.
Four years after the attacks, a CID official pressed charges in the case on June 11, 2008, naming 22 individuals.
Further probe and beginning of trial
CID officer Abdul Kahhar Akand submitted a supplementary charge sheet after additional investigation on July 3, 2011.
Tarique Rahman, Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, former BNP state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar, BNP MP Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaykobad and BNP chief Khaleda Zia’s political advisor Haris Chowdhury were among the 30 people newly charged in the case.
State counsel Rezaur Rahman alleged that the defence was unnecessarily delaying the trial.
“To delay the verdict, defence lawyers are asking unnecessary questions to prosecution witnesses. They are also making unnecessary suggestions during the trial,” he said.
The Dhaka court that is trying the case has heard 99 prosecution witnesses so far.
They include late president Zillur Rahman, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, former home minister Sahara Khatun and AL’s former general secretary late Abdul Jalil.
Most of the accused have also been charged in other cases, and are often taken to different parts of the country on those trials, delaying the grenade-attack case further.
Source: Bd news24
