STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Thousands of leaders and activists of the then main opposition Awami League had turned up in front of the party central office on Bangabandhu Avenue on August 21, 2004, to protest against a series of blasts in Sylhet that had killed several people.

All hell broke loose there at 5:22pm, immediately after AL chief Sheikh Hasina just completed injecting vigour among party activists and there was a call for starting of march and there were grenade explosions one after another.

“I had barely completed my speech and was going to get down from the truck [that was used as the stage of the rally] when I heard a big bang and the next moment blood splashed on my body,” said Sheikh Hasina.

“Mamun, a security guard, helped me sit on the truck while the other grenades started to explode one after another,” she said at her residence, Sudha Sadan, while describing to the reporters on August 22, 2004, what she witnessed on that fateful day.

“In a few moments, leaders and security personnel formed a human shield around me and helped me get into my car. Then came bullets hitting my car one after another.”

The grenades hurled at the rally are usually used by the army, the then opposition leader observed. Hasina said, “The plan was obviously designed to kill me. Gunshots aiming at my vehicle say so. The grace of Almighty Allah saved me….”

During the BNP-Jamaat coalition government, this unprecedented grenade attack was carried out and party leaders and activists formed a human shield to protect Hasina.

Hasina narrowly escaped the grenade attacks carried out by militants with ear injuries, but at least 16 people were killed on that very day and 300, including top AL leaders Abdur Razzak, Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi Zafarullah, were injured critically.

Twenty-four people were killed, including AL Women Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman, wife of late President Zillur Rahman, and over 400 were injured in the grisly attack many of them became crippled for life.