Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the barbaric grenade attack was carried out on August 21 in 2004 under the direct patronization of BNP-Jamaat alliance during an anti-terrorism rally of Awami League in Dhaka to kill her.
Terming the grenade attack a ‘stigmatized day’ in the political history of the country, she said in a message, “Our party leaders and workers saved me from the series of grenade attacks by forming a human shield.”
“I survived the attack due to immense blessings of the Almighty but some 22 leaders and workers including president of Mahila Awami League Ivy Rahman embraced martyrdom,” she said in a message issued on the eve of 17th anniversary of grenade attack on Friday,
She sad more than 500 leaders and activists, journalists and security personnel were injured.
Sheikh Hasina said it was the moral obligation of a government to arrest the culprits involved with such a heinous attack. But, the then government of BNP protected the killers and helped a number of attackers to leave the country.
They destroyed the evidence of the incident and in the name of investigation, diverted the heinous incident to other direction, she said.
“But truth can never be suppressed. Today, it has come out through investigation that many high-ups of the BNP-Jamaat alliance government were directly involved with the attack,” she said.
The Prime Minister said after 14 years, Dhaka’s 1st Speedy Trial Tribunal handed down the verdict of August 21 grenade attack case in 2018, she said, adding that the court awarded death sentence to 19 people including former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu and life imprisonment to 19 including ex-premier Khaleda Zia’s fugitive son Tarique Rahman and Haris Chowdhury.
“Rule of law has been established through this verdict. We hope this verdict will be executed following all legal procedures,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said whenever BNP-Jamaat alliance came to power, they intended to make the country a failed state by patronizing militants and terrorists.
The Prime Minister said the people of the country voted Awami League to power again through a landslide victory on December 29 in 2008 general election to end all evil-attempts and conspiracies of BNP-Jamaat.
She said her government started working to establish the country on a strong economic base overcoming all impediments and Bangladesh is now moving ahead.
Sheikh Hasina said in the last 12 and a half years, the country has achieved expected progress in every sector and Bangladesh is now a “role model” in socioeconomic development.
