Grenade attack perpetrators not captured as govt involved

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Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina yesterday said perpetrators of the grenade attack on the Awami League (AL) rally on August 21, 2004 are still at large even after two years because the government itself was involved in the heinous attack.

“The culprits of the August 21 grenade attack cannot be brought to justice under this government because the government itself was behind it,” AL President Hasina said in a commemorating rally at Bangabandhu Avenue yesterday.

Hasina reached Bangabandhu Avenue at 11:23am under unprecedented security measurers and placed floral wreaths at the memorial plaque built in memory of the 24 people killed on there.

A large contingent of uniformed and plainclothes policemen were deployed in and around the Bangabandhu Avenue while members of different intelligence agencies, police as well as the party workers stood guard on high-rise buildings of the area.

A large number of police personnel were deployed at the City Bhaban, widely thought to be the place from where the grenades were hurled on August 21, 2004. Police as well as private security personnel scanned almost every person who attended the gathering with metal detector.

People in hundreds thronged the Bangabandhu Avenue yesterday to pay homage to those killed on the day two years ago.

After the placing the wreaths, Hasina along with the people gathered there observed one-minute silence to pay respect to the deceased party activists.

Addressing a rally beside the memorial plaque, Hasina said, “There is no doubt that the prime minister, her son and the state minister for home affairs were involved in the attack.” She said if they were not involved then how could all the perpetrators flee from the spot.

The AL chief said it is unbelievable that the government could not capture any perpetrator of the deadly grenade attack. The government knew about the attack, they did not allow the rally to be held at Muktangon, Hasina said. The grenade attack was carried out when AL was holding an anti-terrorism rally to protest the attack on British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury and bomb attacks at other places, she added.

Saying 24 people were killed in the attack and more than 500 were injured, Hasina said the government might have made a number of bodies disappear from the spot immediately after the attack.

The opposition leader said, “We are living in a country where killers are not brought to justice rather they are patronised by the state.”

“It was the duty of the law enforcers to take the injured to hospitals following the attack, but they lobbed teargas shells and charged truncheons on our party men and helped the perpetrators flee from the spot,” the former prime minister said adding that the police also obstructed people from taking the injured to the hospitals.

“I understand your pain, because I have lost all that is mine in another month of August. The August is a month of mourning for us,” Hasina told the family members of the victims who were present in an emotion-choked voice. She expressed her gratitude to the almighty Allah for saving her life.

She said the killers and their patrons would be brought to justice. Hasina said the country has been built on people’s blood and the blood of the martyrs and that would never go in vain.

The leaders and workers of AL and its front organisations, along with those of Workers Party, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (Inu), left-leaning 11-party alliance, different political, socio-cultural and student organisations also laid wreaths at the memorial plaque yesterday.

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