A wave of grenade attacks on opposition chief Sheikh
Hasina's rally on Bangabandhu Avenue on 21st August
2004 left 19 people including popular Awami league
leader Ivy rahman killed and 200 including top Awami
League (AL) leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu,
Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah
critically injured.
Hasina, who was the apparent target of the attacks
carried out from buildings in front of the AL headquarters,
escaped with severe ear injury as activists formed
a human shield to protect their leader aboard a
truck.
The unknown assailants fired seven bullets at the
bulletproof sports utility vehicle (SUV) that Hasina
boarded immediately after the blasts. A bullet also
punctured the rear wheel of the vehicle and there
was a large hole on the rear right side of its window
shield.
At least three bullets hit the right side of the
front window shield, just opposite the front seat
where the former prime minister sat. The deadly
attacks started at 5:23pm just when Hasina wrapped
up a rally of around 25,000 supporters protesting
the recent Sylhet blasts with a call 'to end the
rule of the government that inspires bomb attacks'.
The AL central leaders were on the truck with Hasina.
The injured leaders, among at least 200 others,
fell on the street bleeding, some of them profusely.
It became a ghastly scene of disjointed limbs and
blood. People smeared with blood lay groaning and
screaming for help. But nobody dared to come to
their rescue.
The dead are Ivy Rahman, AL women affairs secretary
and president of Bangladesh Mohila AL, Rafiqul Islam,
60, AL vice-president of ward No. 24, Sufia, 38,
women affairs secretary of city AL, Hasina Mamtaj,
35, president of ward No. 15, constable Mahbubul
Alam, bodyguard of the AL chief, Kala Sentu of city
AL, Liton, 35, Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) activist,
Md Hanif, 49, AL activist of Gupibagh, Ratan Sikder,
40, of Narayanganj, Abul Kashem, 60, Moajjem Hossain,
25, Jahed Ali, 15, Momin, 35, and another unidentified.
Mostak Ahmed Sentu and Kuddus Patwary died at the
Nitor. Belal Hossain, 26, leader of Kotwali thana
unit BCL, died at Metropolitan Hospital. Most of
the hundreds of injured were rushed to the DMCH
but later shifted to other hospitals as the DMCH
authority failed to treat them due to lack of facilities. |
