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BSS-03
PM-AUGUST 21-MOURNING
Khaleda, Tarique directly involved in Aug 21 grenade attack: PM
DHAKA, Aug 21, 2018 (BSS)-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today accused again
the then BNP government of perpetrating the barbaric grenade attack on an
Awami League rally in 2004, saying that there is no doubt that Khaleda Zia
and her son Tarique Rahman were directly involved in the carnage.
“There is no doubt that the BNP, Khaleda Zia (former prime minister) and
her son were directly involved in the gruesome grenade attack on the Awami
League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said a volunteer group comprising Sechchasebak and Chhatra
League leaders and workers is usually engaged in maintaining security of any
Awami League meeting and they do it from the rooftops of nearby buildings.
“But on that day they (the volunteers) were not allowed to get on the
rooftops of the buildings as those were closed. So it’s clear that who were
involved in the attack,” she said.
The prime minister was speaking at a rally after placing wreaths at the
memorial of martyrs of the gruesome grenade attack on August 21, 2004 on
Bangabandhu Avenue here this morning.
The makeshift memorial was set up by Bangladesh Awami League in front of
its Bangabandhu Avenue central office where the militants lobbed 13 grenades
on a peaceful rally of the party on this day in 2004.
Twenty-four leaders and workers of AL, its associate bodies including the
then Mohila AL President Ivy Rahman, wife of late President Zillur Rahman,
were killed and over 500 others suffered splinter injuries in the attack and
many of them became crippled for life.
Though Sheikh Hasina narrowly escaped the attack, she lost her hearing
ability due to the impact of the repeated grenade blasts near the truck-dais
of the huge public rally.
The premier first placed a wreath at the memorial and then flanked by
leaders of Awami League, she, as president of the party, placed another
wreath.
Cabinet members, PM’s advisors, senior leaders of Awami League and 14-
party combine and family members of the martyrs and those injured in the
incident were present.
A one minute silence was observed in memory of those killed in the grenade
attack while a munajat was also offered seeking eternal peace of the departed
souls.
After her address, Sheikh Hasina met relatives of the victims of the
grenade attack.
MORE/SH/AKM 1215hrs