Dhaka, Aug 20 (IANS) Bangladesh’s Awami League party on Wednesday slammed the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government for acquitting all the convicts in the horrific August 2004 grenade attack that had left 24 people dead and hundreds injured.
The party led by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stated that the move proves Yunus government’s “direct collusion with militants and terrorists” as well as its “active patronage of extremism”.
The party recalled it was after 14 long years in 2018 that the Bangladeshi Court delivered its verdict in the August 21 grenade attack case by sentencing 19 of the 49 accused to death, another 19 to life imprisonment and the remaining 11 to various prison terms. However, it alleged that the “illegal usurpers and fascist Yunus group” have acquitted all those convicted.
Additionally, the Awami League asserted that the August 21 grenade attack was a continuation of the barbaric killings of August 15, 1975, aimed at eliminating Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s bloodline and ideals by assassinating his daughter Sheikh Hasina. It described the attack as a “vile conspiracy” by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party–Jamaat-e-Islami evil alliance,” terming them as the main political patrons of “militant and terrorist groups” in the country.
According to the party, the attack was orchestrated under the blueprint of Tarique Rahman, son of then Prime Minister and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, along with war criminals and Jamaat leaders Matiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, then State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, BNP leader and former Deputy Minister Abdus Salam Pintu, militant leader Mufti Hannan, and other anti-Liberation reactionary groups.
“On August 21, 2004 a militant group, using the then state machinery, carried out a barbaric grenade attack in front of the Bangladesh Awami League’s central office at 23 Bangabandhu Avenue during an anti-terrorism, anti-extremism, and anti-corruption rally. The Awami League became the direct victim of this atrocious act of terrorism. On that day, 22 leaders and activists, including Ivy Rahman—Women’s Affairs Secretary of the Awami League and wife of late President Zillur Rahman — were martyred in the heinous attack,” read a statement issued by the Awami League.
Highlighting that more than 500 leaders, activists, and journalists from print and electronic media were injured by a grenade splinter, the party stated that several injured Awami League leaders, activists, and supporters still endure unbearable suffering from those injuries.
“The type of barbaric massacre carried out by the BNP-Jamaat coalition government at a political rally with direct and indirect state support is rare in world history. The Bengali nation will never forget that dark day. Since 2004, the people of Bangladesh, inspired by the spirit of the Liberation War, have observed August 21 with various programmes against terrorism and extremism in memory of the victims,” the Awami League stated.
The party announced a series of programmes to be held on Thursday in memory of the victims of the August 21, 2004 grenade attack, recalling it as one of the most horrific and brutal days in the country’s history.
–IANS
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