The 19th anniversary of the gruesome grenade attack on an anti-terrorism rally of the then opposition party Awami League in the capital on August 21 in 2004 is being observed today paying tributes to martyrs.
On this day in 2004 during the BNP-Jamaat coalition government, this ghastly attack was carried out on a peaceful anti-terrorism rally in front of AL’s Bangabandhu Avenue central office in the capital.
The party leaders and activists formed a human shield to protect the then opposition leader and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Bangabandhu’s daughter Sheikh Hasina miraculously survived the infernal grenade attack that day. As Sheikh Hasina, the main target of the assassins, survived, 12 rounds of bullets were shot at her car while she was hurriedly being taken away to safer place from the scene.
However, the bullets could not penetrate the bulletproof vehicle carrying Bangabandhu’s daughter. Immediately after the attack, Sheikh Hasina was cordoned off in a car and taken to her the then residence Sudha Sadan in Dhanmondi.
But, 24 people including the then Women Affairs Secretary of Awami League and wife of late President Zillur Rahman were killed and over 500 others injured in the attack and many of them became crippled for life.
Those others killed in the barbaric grenade attack included 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.বিস্তারিত