Shawdesh Desk:

The victims of August 21 grenade attack are still having an unbearable pain and trauma even 16 years after the grisly attack on AL rally.

Family members of the dead are still haunted by the horrible memories of the heinous grenade blasts on the then opposition Awami League’s anti-militant rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in protest against the countrywide extremism during the BNP-Jamaat alliance government.

The one and a half-minute-long gruesome attack left 24 people, including AL’s women affairs secretary Ivy Rahman, killed and scores of others were injured critically.

Some have lost their eyesight while some ability to walk and hear. Some are still experiencing an intolerable lifelong pain.

Even they can’t sleep well at night because of the pain of the grenade splinters and those terrible memories.

After that day, many of the injured could not return to normal state. Some are carrying hundreds of splinters in their bodies. Many have suffered partial disability. They are trying to handle their feelings of pain through regular treatment. Talking to daily sun, they shared their terrible experience of the deadliest grenade blasts and demanded capital punishment to those perpetrators and masterminds.

Md Nazim Uddin, then assistant secretary to Bhairab Upazila Juba League, who witnessed the grenade attack, said: “I could not forget the screams of the wounded. I had witnessed the attack as I was just behind the makeshift stage with former Mahila Awami League president Ivy Rahman.”

Nazim said, “I was trying to save Ivy Rahman but I could not. Even I fainted for a long time. I got back my sense when someone stampeded my leg as I was dumped in Dhaka Medical College Hospital with lifeless bodies, blood and severed body parts.”

Mahbuba Parveen, another witness and victim, said: “The then BNP-led government patronised the attack and even they did not provide us with treatment.”

“I saw men and women lie on the street in pools of blood when I regained my sense. Those bodies and the screams of the wounded are impossible to forget.” Mentioning that then prime minister Khaleda Zia and her son Tarique Rahman were directly involved in the gruesome killing, Parveen said: “I want capital punishment for those involved in heinous killing along with their masterminds.”

“I am still carrying over 1,800 splinters in my body. I cannot sleep a night without pain, which reminded me all the time about the grisly attack on Sheikh Hasina,” he said.

Ummey Razia Kajol, then assistant secretary of Swechchhasebak League, said she suffered severe splinter injury in the left leg and still experience an unbearable pain. She cannot go to hospital amid coronavirus pandemic.

“I attended the rally on the day. After the grenade explosions, all started running. I also tried to run but could not leave the place. I saw many people scream for help,” she said.

Mentioning that she was standing a few feet away from the makeshift truck, Razia said: “I saw others lie on the street in a pool of blood. I want punishment for all those perpetrators including Khaleda Zia, Tarique Rahman, Lutfozzaman Babar and Abdus Salam Pintu.” Sheikh Bazlur Rahman, then joint general secretary of Dhaka city Awami League, said he has been suffering from various diseases due to the grenade attack as many splinters still remain in his body.

“The wounds apparently have gone away but horrible experience is still in my mind,” he said, adding that justice should be done immediately—so that such incident never reoccurs—to free the nation from the stigma of committing most shocking crime in the political history. Cases on August 21 grenade attack are under trial in the High Court due to the appeal of the accused. A court on October 10 in 2018, awarded death sentences to 19 people including former junior home minister Lutfozzaman Babar and life imprisonment to other 19 accused including ex-premier Khaleda Zia’s fugitive son Tarique Rahman in connection with the grenade attack.