Recalling the moments of heinous 21 August grenade attack, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s cousin and her former personal security staff Nazib Ahmed has said the killers actually wanted to do what they could not do on August 15, 1975 killing the then opposition leader and other Awami League leaders.
“It was a state-sponsored final conspiracy (to complete the unfinished job of killers),” he told UNB, adding that the court verdict in this case should be implemented by bringing back the killers including BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman who are fugitives now.
“If the court verdict is implemented, their souls - the leaders and activists of AL whom we have lost- will find peace,” Ahmed said.
The August 21 grenade attack was carried out on an anti-terrorism rally organised by then opposition AL in 2004 in front of its central office in the Bangabandhu Avenue when the BNP-Jamaat alliance was in power. The then opposition leader and current PM Sheikh Hasina was the main target.
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The horrendous attack left 24 people killed and nearly 1000 injured. AL President and also then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina luckily escaped death, but her hearing was impaired by the repeated grenade blasts. Among the dead was Awami League’s women affairs secretary and late President Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy Rahman.
He said they had a single goal that was to shift her to a safer place. “We could do that. We were committed politically and we had a responsibility to protect her. We did not flee keeping her alone. It is the biggest success of my life that we could protect her from the killers taking the risk of our own lives.”
Ahmed said he is satisfied today to see Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina alive. “I am ready to go for any war to keep her protected. Still I have that strength and courage.”
He, however, thinks Almighty Allah protected her and people have no such power.
Ahmed said it could have been another lifelong pain for him if he was not there for Prime Minister Hasina on that violent day.
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“In my body, I feel like splinters of grenades keep walking from one place to another. We who are bearing the splinters can only understand the pain. Nobody can make others understand this pain. We, who are bearing splinters in our bodies, can’t even do MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging),” he said.
Going back to the dangerous moments of the first blast, Ahmed said, “At one stage, all leaders completed their speeches. Leader Hasina was at the last part of her speech. She uttered Joy Bangla and was about to utter Joy Bangabandhu. Exactly at that moment, I noticed a black object flying towards us from the City Hotel front. Within a second, the blast occurred.”
He claimed to be senior most among those who were deployed for her safety and security all the time.
“Usually, at Bangabandhu Avenue, police and AL leaders come together but one that particular day, no AL leaders and activists were allowed to be there on the rooftop. No police were deployed on the rooftop. We did not take it much seriously at that time but it came to our notice,” Ahmed said.
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When within seconds there were a number of blasts, three sides surrounding Sheikh Hasina were covered immediately by the senior AL leaders and activists, he recalled and said, “We were on the truck. Hanif bhai, Maya bhai and Squadron Leader Mamun shielded Apa [Hasina] from three sides.”
“There was something like a table on her front side exposing her half of the body. I blocked the front side as her front side was open to a large extent. We built a human shield to protect her at any cost,” Ahmed said.
He said Sheikh Hasina kept telling him to remember Almighty Allah. “Only Alah can protect us. We were reciting Doa Yunus together as she asked. We were again attacked and the splinter hit me and others.”
They got down from the truck and managed to take Hasina to the SUV. Maj Mamun ran to the vehicle and opened its left door. Hasina huddled inside it. Nazib, Tarique, Shoyeb, Mamun and Maya followed.
They saw the frightening scenes and some of the injured lay on the street, bleeding profusely, while some groaned sitting on congealed blood and some motionless bodies lay scattered.
"I saw Ivy chachi (Ivy Rahman) lying in a pool of blood, motionless. I also saw my cousin Bahauddin Nasim trying to stand up amid blood, but failed," he said.
Getting off the car, Hasina gave some money to her party men and asked them to go to the spot immediately.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday stressed the need for expediting the implementation of the trial court’s verdict of the August 21 grenade attack case.
“Our leaders and activists including Ivy Rahman were brutally killed in broad daylight on this August 21. The trial has been held. Its (trial court) judgment has been handed out. This verdict should be implemented soon,” she said.
A Dhaka court had already convicted and sentenced 49 people – 19 of them to death and 19 to life imprisonment. Eleven others were sentenced to jail on different terms.
Eighteen convicted people, including BNP leader Tarique Rahman, have remained fugitives.
Appeals against the judgment are now being heard in the high court.
Hasina, while presiding over today’s discussion, said some convicted people of the grenade attack case are now in jail but the main mastermind stays outside the country.