The Awami League and its front organisations on Wednesday will observe the ninth anniversary of the August 21 grenade attack on a party rally, with a renewed call for holding trials of the attackers. As many as 24 people were killed when extremists, who were allegedly backed by the then ruling BNP-Jamaat alliance, had thrown grenades at an anti-terror public meeting organised by the AL at Banbabandhu Avenue here on August 21, 2004.
The AL has ever since maintained that the attack was a plot to wipe out the party’s top leadership, including then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina.
Hasina and other front-ranking AL leaders of had escaped the carnage. AL leaders, including the then Dhaka mayor late Mohammad Hanif, had saved their party chief by forming a human shield. But 24 others, including Mahila AL president Ivy Rahman, wife of late President Zillur Rahman, were killed and over 500 suffered splinter injuries in the attack. Many of them were crippled for life.
AL, its associate bodies and its left-leaning allies, and other political parties, social-cultural and professional organisations have chalked out different programmes across the country to mark the anniversary.
The day’s programme will begin with placing of wreaths at the temporary memorial at 23 Bangabandhu Avenue by AL chief Sheikh Hasina at 11 am.
Later, Hasina will meet the family members of the deceased and those wounded in the heinous grenade attack. She will also take part in a discussion at the same venue.
In a message to the nation on Tuesday, the PM said the heinous grenade attack was carried out on a AL on August 21, 2004 in a bid to make the country leaderless and giving the politics of killing, conspiracy and corruption a permanent stay.
“The main objective of the barbaric attack was to halt the trend of peace and on-going development and undermine the spirit of our country’s independence,” she said. Hasina said that although it was the moral responsibility of a government to bring the killers to book, the then BNP-Jamaat government tried its level best to protect the attackers.
“Even the then government helped a number of attackers to flee the country and destroyed evidence in the name of investigation. They also tried to shift the blame on other elements,” she added.
-With The Independent input
