I, along with my senior colleague, SM Mizanur Rahman, was covering the opposition leader Sheikh Hasina’s rally as reporters of ‘Bangladesh Today’ newspaper on that day.
The heinous and horrific incident took place in the broad daylight at around 5:22pm on August 21 in 2004. The entire Bangabandhu Avenue was rocked with grenade blasts just after Bangabandhu daughter Sheikh Hasina, the incumbent Prime Minister of Bangladesh, had concluded her speech chanting slogan- “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu.”
At first a grenade exploded two yards from the makeshift dais on a truck where she was standing. The sounds of the grenade blasts were so terrifying and super bang, they seemed like thunderclaps one after another, at Bangabandhu Avenue. It was nightmare for me and my other journalist friends. There was blood everywhere in the area.
Like other leaders and workers and journalists from different print and electronic media, ran to and fro amid the blasts and billowing smoke. But at one stage, we (journalists) could not understand what to do at that 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 on pools of blood in front of Bangabandhu Avenue. Immediately after the attacks, both the dead and injured AL men and journalists were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital leaving the whole city in a horrific situation.
While grenades were being hurled indiscriminately targeting Sheikh Hasina, her party leaders, activists and bodyguards saved her at the risk of their own lives and escorted her away from the scene. The attacks left at least 24 leaders and activists dead and several hundred others injured.
The entire atmosphere at the venue of rally changed immediately after the attacks were launched. Smoke engulfed the whole area. There was blood everywhere. Torn shoes and clothing were here and there. In the meantime, vehicular movement in the area was stopped as a result it became difficult to shift the injured people to hospitals.
The attack was carried out according to a meticulously designed plan hatched by some bigwigs of the then BNP-led government who allegedly conspired to annihilate their political rivals, including their prime target Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina.
The plot failed as Sheikh Hasina, the president of Bangladesh Awami League and the then opposition leader in Parliament, narrowly survived the attack as some of her party leaders protected her by forming a human shield around her. However, 24 people were killed, including AL Women Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman, and over 400 were injured in the grisly attack.
The rally was organised protesting the Sylhet blasts with a call ‘to end the rule of the BNP government that inspired the bomb attacks’. Sheikh Hasina was addressing the rally from a truck.
The barbaric and gruesome grenade attack of the history 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 the party, its associate bodies including the then Mahila AL president Ivy Rahman, wife of former President Zillur Rahman, were killed. Besides, more than 400 others suffered splinter injuries in the attack and many of them became crippled.
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 targeting the truck where Sheikh Hasina was standing and addressing the rally from there.