Aug 21 Attack Was Not Possible without BNP-Jamaat Govt’s Patronage: PM

Recalling the barbarous carnage, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Friday that an assault like that of 21 August 2004 could not be carried out without direct support from the then BNP-Jamaat government, reports UNB.

"If there had been no support from the [then] government, the grenade assault of August-21 might not be carried out in this way," she said.

Sheik Hasina made the accusation when addressing the question of a grenade assault on August 21, 2004. The Awami League organized the event at its central office on Bangabandhu Avenue.

The Prime Minister attended the event virtually from her official residence Ganobhaban.

She said that the then BNP-Jamaat government had gathered the terrorists and militants in one place, provided training to carry out such an attack, and provided them with a safe passage to flee abroad.

"They (BNP-Jamaat govt) thought I had died (in a grenade attack), but when they came to know that I didn't die, they allowed the militants to flee the country," said Sheikh Hasina.

After the attack, she said, the police manipulated tear gas shells and beat the AL members and staff with a button instead of saving the victims.

Hasina said that even BNP-Jamaat-backed doctors did not attend injured AL leaders and workers at Dhaka Medical College Hospital and that no patient was allowed to enter Bangabandhu

Sheikh Mujibur Medical University as it was closed.

"If they (BNP-Jamaat) had not been directly involved in this attack, had they put barricade this way (getting treatment, nab the culprits and destroying evidence)?" she questioned.

The Prime Minister said that killings were their crime because they did not trust in the liberation of the nation and did not believe in the meaning of the Liberation War. "Power is a tool for them to make money through corruption," she said.

Read Also: 16th Anniversary of August 21 Grenade Attack

In this context, Hasina said that Bangladesh is still suffering from the venom tree planted by the BNP-Jamaat clique. "We 're uprooting those one by one after taking control."

AL Secretary General Obaidul Quader also commented on the platform, accompanied by senior party leaders.

The barbaric grenade attack was carried out on an anti-terrorism rally of Awami League on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital on August 21, 2004, during the BNP-Jamaat government aiming to wipe out the AL leadership.

Twenty-four people, including then President of the Mohila Awami League and late President Zillur Rahman's wife, Ivy Rahman, were killed and more than 500 others were injured in a grisly attack, and many of them were crippled for life.

Sheikh Hasina, then leader of the opposition, barely survived the assault but suffered hearing loss owing to the effects of the frequent grenade explosions near the truck-dais of the large public rally. AL men saved her life by forming a human shield around her during the attack.