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PM-AUGUST 21-ATTACK
Khaleda, Tarique directly involved in Aug 21 grenade attack: PM
DHAKA, Aug 24, 2018 (BSS) – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has accused again Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman of perpetrating the barbaric grenade attack on an Awami League rally in 2004, saying that they were directly involved in the carnage.
“There is no doubt that the BNP, the then prime minister Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman were directly involved in the gruesome grenade attack on the Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital,” she said.
The prime minister was speaking at a rally after placing wreaths at the memorial of martyrs of the gruesome grenade attack on Bangabandhu Avenue here on August 21 last on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the carnage.
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.
In this connection, Sheikh Hasina referred to barring her party’s volunteers by the then government from maintaining security of the AL rally, making attacks on AL leaders and workers instead of rescuing the dead and the injured persons after the rally and destroying the evidence of the grenade attack.
She also mentioned the remarks of Khaleda Zia and her party leaders and planting of twin bombs – one 76-kg and another 84-kg – in Kotalipara some days before the grisly grenade attack and hatching conspiracy of Tarique Rahman by staying in his father-in-law’s residence at Dhanmondi road No. 5 in the capital.
The prime minister said she heard that the BNP-Jamaat nexus had planned to carry out a similar attack on a milad mahfil on August 15 of the same year.
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 August 21 grenade 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 said Awami League arranged the rally in front of the party office on August 21, 2004 for peace and in protest against terrorist activities of the militants across the country including an attack on the then British high commissioner at the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal (R) in Sylhet.
Sheikh Hasina said a volunteer group comprising Sechchasebak League and Chhatra League leaders and workers is usually engaged in maintaining security of any Awami League meeting and they do it by guarding the adjacent areas and 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 premier said some days before the rally, Begum Zia had said that the Awami will not be able to go to power in 100 years and I would never be the prime minister or even the leader of the opposition in future.
She said Tarique Rahman had mysteriously stayed at his father-in-law’s residence at Dhanmondi road No. 5 in the capital for nine months before the rally.
“Then the attack was carried out to kill me and eliminate the Awami League,” she said.
After the attack on that day, she said, police lobbed tear gas and resorted to lathi charge on AL leaders and worker instead of rescuing the dead and the injured persons.
“The aim of this was to allow attackers to flee without any hindrance,” she said, adding the BNP high-ups rebuked a DGFI official and other police officers who wanted to know about the incident.
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