August 21: A permanent scar

21 August will remain as a permanent scar on the collective psyche of the nation. The enormity of the bloodbath on that day not only stunned the people of Bangladesh, but those in other democratic countries as well. As news of such reprehensible attack on a political meeting started to go around the globe condemnation began to arrive from different countries with world leaders expressing their concern over the death of numerous Bangladeshis in the carnage.

Political opponents of the then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina masterminded a heinous grenade attack on an Awami League rally on 21 August in 2004. It was a preplanned attack by a group of trained persons who knew how to lob grenades from a distance, and then again in broad daylight. The goal was annihilation of Sheikh Hasina and top leadership of the Awami League.

They took up position on the rooftops of nearby buildings and on the road sides in safe distance. Sheikh Hasina was delivering her speech from a truck-turned-stage on the road in front of the AL office at Bangabandhu Avenue when some live grenades were lobbed from rooftops directly on the crowd below. As splinters started to fly around piercing through the people in the rally, lifeless bodies fell and blood turned the road crimson. Some AL leaders formed a human shield around Sheikh Hasina and saved their leader from getting hurt. In the process some senior leaders got injured as splinters hit them.

Having failed in killing her with grenade attack, her assailants fired on her car with guns as she got inside in a hurry. Bullets hit her vehicle on a number of spots but she got away uninjured. Eyewitnesses recalled that in total 13 explosions were heard one after another near the stage. The mayhem left 24 people killed and over 400 injured. The AL Women Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman was severely injured in the attack and lost her life after three days in a hospital. Among other injured AL leaders were Presidium Members Amir Hossain Amu, Abdur Razzak, Suranjit Sengupta, Kazi Zafarullah, Mohammad Nasim, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Sahara Khatun, the then Dhaka City Mayor Mohammad Hanif, Hasina’s security personnel Salim and Nazrul Islam Babu.

No sooner the smoke from the grenades cleared from the scene of the carnage, Awami League workers rushed to the spot to rescue the injured. They managed some ambulances, microbuses and minibuses to take the injured to hospitals where a crisis of blood for transfusion ensued. In sheer anger some party supporters threw stones at vehicles and set fire to some in and around the party office. To quell public rage police had to fire teargas canisters until the situation came under control.

The Awami League blamed the government in power for orchestrating the attack and their conviction was further reinforced when the following day cleaners from the City Corporation wiped clean all evidence with water and the two unexploded grenade recovered from the spot were taken to an unknown destination and exploded under controlled conditions without taking them for a forensic test. All fingers were pointed at the then state minister for Home Affairs as he could not come up with convincing answers to many questions put forward by the media.

Sheikh Hasina also blamed the then BNP-led four-party coalition government for the series of bomb explosions across the country and the latest one being on her that she had narrowly escaped. She demanded its immediate resignation.

Grenade attack on an opposition leader in a political meeting in broad daylight is unparalleled in history. The deep scar bleeds anew every year on 21 August and the pain turns unbearable as the victims have to live with the knowledge that the main perpetrators have not been put on trial as yet. Many of them are still passing painful days and rights with splinters lodged deep inside their body. They are waiting for the day when all the perpetrators will be caught and given the punishment they deserve.