With a heavy heart, the nation pays rich tributes to the martyrs of the August 21 grisly carnage today (Friday).
Today is the 16th anniversary of the August 21 grisly carnage.
On this day in 2004, the history’s most barbaric and gruesome grenade attack was launched on an Awami League rally at Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital city of Dhaka as per a blueprint to kill Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina during the rule of BNP-Jamaat alliance government.
As soon as the then leader of the opposition in parliament and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina just concluded her address pronouncing ‘Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu’ at about 5:22pm on August 21 in 2004, the militant members started hurling hand grenades from the rooftops of high rise buildings located around the Awami League’s central party office at Bangabandhu Avenue.
The entire Bangabandhu Avenue and its adjacent areas were rocked by a series of grenade blasts in the afternoon on the day killing 24 people, including Mohila Awami League president and late President Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy Rahman and wounding over 450 other.
The then 0pposition leader and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina escaped the attack unhurt but her hearing was impared badly.
There was no such incident in the history of mankind, where state sponsored attack was launched to kill the leader of the opposition in parliament and the daughter of the Father of the Nation.
August 21 grenade attack was a part of conspiracy that started before August 15, 1975 for killing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to reverse the country’s Independence.
On this day, this correspondent covering the opposition leader Sheikh Hasina’s rally as a reporter during the attack felt a tremor and saw thick smock covering the whole area with the sounds of groaning emitting from the wounded people.
Within a moment the entire area turned into a horror zone as blood shedding from the wounded people and then it rolling down on the road with wounded people groaning.
As per the directives of BNP senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman and former state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, the Islamist militants launched the gruesome grenade attack on a rally in broad day light.
Besides, some stalwarts of BNP-Jamaat had conspired to annihilate their political rivals, including their prime target AL President Sheikh Hasina.
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.
About 400 others suffered splinter injuries in the attack and many of them became crippled for life.
AL leaders including the then mayor of Dhaka City late Mohammad Hanif and the leader of the opposition Sheikh Hasina’s personal security squad saved their party chief forming a human shield.
Though Sheikh Hasina narrowly escaped the attack, she lost her hearing ability due to the impact of the repeated grenade blasts near the truck-dais of the huge public rally.
But the then opposition leader’s personal security guard Lance Corporal (retd) Mahbubur Rashid, Abul Kalam Azad, Rezina Begum, Nasir Uddin Sardar, Atique Sarkar, Abdul Kuddus Patwari, Aminul Islam Moazzem, Belal Hossain, Mamun Mridha, Ratan Shikdar, Liton Munshi, Hasina Mamtaz Reena, Sufia Begum, Rafiqul Islam, (Ada Chacha), Mostaque Ahmed Sentu, Md Hanif, Abul Kashem, Zahed Ali, Momen, Ali, M Shamsuddin and Ishaque Miah met the tragic end of their lives in the history’s heinous attack.
Besides, many other senior leaders suffered serious splinter injuries including Sheikh Hasina, Amir Hossain Amu, late Abdur Razzak, late Suranjit Sengupta, Obaidul Quader, late Advocate Sahara Khatun, late Mohammad Hanif, Prof Abu Sayeed, and AFM Bahauddin.
The grenade attack had been plotted to make bankrupt the AL and Bangladesh in leadership and stopping democratic process and establishing autocracy and militancy.
The rally was organised protesting the Sylhet blasts with a call ‘to end the rule of the government that inspires bomb attacks’.
The ruling Awami League wants to end killing, terrorism and militancy in the country by bringing the attackers, masterminds and plotters of the grenade attack of August 21 under trial.
Meanwhile, court sentenced to death 19 people including former state minister for home affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar and to life imprisonment another 19 including ex-premier Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman on August 21, 2004 grenade attack charges on October 10, 2018.
The court also awarded different jail terms to 11 more accused. 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 eight of them.
Marking the anniversary, the ruling AL, its front and associate bodies and its left-leaning allies, and other political parties, social-cultural and professional organisations have chalked out elaborate programmes across the country.
Two separate cases, one for murder and another under Explosives Substances Act were filed on August 22, 2004, and the police on June 9, 2008 submitted the charge sheet. The court on September 29, 2008, framed charges in the case.
Investigation Officer and also Additional Deputy Inspector General of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police on July 2, 2011, submitted a supplementary charge sheet before the court and the court on March 18, 2012, framed charges afresh after taking the new charge sheet into cognizance.
Fifty two people were held accused in the case while prosecution suggested an influential quarter of the then BNP regime including party’s senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman masterminded its shocking plot engaging militant outfit HuJI and subsequently made desperate efforts to protect the assailants.
Three of the accused top HuJI leader Mufty Abdul Hannan, Sharif Shahedul Bipul and then Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed however, were by now executed after trial in other cases.
A total of 31 accused including two former ministers faced the trial in person while 18 including Tarique Rahman were tried in absentia as they are believed to be staying abroad.
Tarique, now in London, and 17 others including several intelligence officials were earlier declared “absconding” as they were on the run to evade justice.
Eight suspects including three former police chiefs were on bail as the trial was underway while the court on September 18, 2018, scrapped their bail and ordered their confinement in jail with due facilities they deserved under law.
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.
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.
With the verdict pronounced by Dhaka’s 1st Speedy Trial Tribunal Judge Shahed Nur Uddin, the nation was freed from stigma of committing most shocking crime in the political history.
Later, the lower court on November 27, 2018, sent a 37,385-page case document including the judgement to the High Court for further proceedings.
Eight suspects including three former police chiefs were on bail as the trial was underway while the court on September 18, 2018, scrapped their bail and ordered their confinement in jail with due facilities they deserved under law.
The death penalty convicts are: Lutfuzzaman Babar, Salam Pintu, Mawlana Tajuddin, intelligence officials Major General (retd) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury and Brigadier General Abdur Rahim, transport operator Md Hanif, militants Mowlana Sheikh Abdus Salam, Abdul Mazed Bhat, Abdul Malek, Shawkat Osman, Mohibullah, Abu Sayeed, Abul Kalam Azad, Jahangir Alam, Hafez Abu Taher, Hossain Ahammed Tamim, Moin Uddin Sheikh, Rafikul Islam and Md Uzzal.
Other than Rahman, the political figures who were handed down life imprisonments are – ex-premier Khaleda Zia’s the then political adviser Haris Chowdhury and former BNP lawmaker Qazi Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad.
The others to serve the life term prison are – militants Shahadat Ullah alias Jewel, Abdur Rouf, Sabbir Ahmed, Arif Hasan, Hafez Yahia, Abu Bokor, Ariful Islam, Mohibul Muttakin, Anisul Mursalin, Mohammad Khalil, Jahangir Alam Badar, Mohammad Iqbal, Liton, Shafikur Rahman, Abdul Hai and Ratul Ahmed Babu.
They all were fined Taka 50,000 each in the case lodged under the Explosive Substances Act.
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.
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.
