Khaleda, Tarique directly involved in Aug 21 grenade attack: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday 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, reports BSS.

“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.