Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday stressed the need for expediting the implementation of the trial court’s verdict in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack case. “Our leaders and activists, including Ivy Rahman, were brutally killed in broad daylight on August 21. The trial has been held. Its (trial court) judgment has been handed out. This verdict should be implemented soon,” she said. The premier was addressing a discussion arranged by Bangladesh Awami League (AL) at Dhaka’s Bangabandhu Avenue, marking 19th anniversary of the August 21 grenade attack. The grenade attack was carried out on an anti-terrorism rally organised by the then opposition AL on August 21, 2004 in front of its central office on Bangabandhu Avenue. The gruesome attack left 24 people killed and nearly 1,000 injured. AL president and then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina luckily survived, 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. A Dhaka court had already convicted and sentenced 49 people, including 19 to death and 19 to life imprisonment. Eleven were sentenced to different prison terms. Read: 19th anniversary of Aug 21 grenade attack today Eighteen of the convicted, including BNP leader Tarique Rahman, remain fugitives. Appeals against the judgment are now being heard in the High Court. Sheikh Hasina, while presiding over today’s discussion, said some of those convicted in the grenade attack case are now in jail but the main mastermind remains outside the country. Without mentioning Tarique Rahman, she said that he went abroad signing a bond. “If he has courage, why doesn’t he come back? We’ve transformed the country into Digital Bangladesh. He is now talking big, taking its advantages… He should come back, if he has courage. People of Bangladesh will not spare that killer,” she said. Recalling the grisly grenade attack, the premier said Khaleda Zia was the prime minister at the time, and the question remains what role she played at that time. Read: It was a state-sponsored conspiracy to kill Hasina: Witness and injured Nazib recalls horror of Aug 21 carnage She questioned why Khaleda obstructed police (from taking appropriate measures) and didn’t take any initiative to protect evidence of the attack. “What does it prove? There is no doubt that Khaleda, Tarique and their men were completely involved in the grenade attack. It was also revealed in the investigation,” said the AL president.

The nation is observing the 19th anniversary of the gruesome August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka with various programmes today and pledges to resist such acts of terror. On this day in 2004, a heinous grenade attack was carried out on an anti-terrorism rally organised by the Awami League at Bangabandhu Avenue. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the then leader of the opposition, was apparently the target when the BNP-Jamaat alliance government was in office. At least 24 people, including Awami League’s women affairs secretary and late President Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy Rahman, were killed. Three hundred others were also injured. Sheikh Hasina survived but suffered hearing impairment. Read: Zia was behind August 15 killings, Tarique behind August 21: Hasan Mahmud Fourteen years later, a Dhaka court sentenced 19 people, including the then BNP government’s state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, to death in the grenade attack case. Tarique Rahman, the eldest son of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and the party's current acting chairman, and 18 others were sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in the grenade attack. Marking the day, Awami League and its associate bodies have chalked out elaborate programmes across the country. Tributes will be paid to the grenade attack martyrs by placing wreaths at the altar built in their memory in front of the party's Bangabandhu Avenue office in Dhaka at 11 am. Read: Grenade attacks and targeted killings among methods then BNP-Jamaat govt applied in their attempt to decimate AL, tweet reminds Later, a discussion will start at 11:15 am in memory of those killed in the August 21 grenade attack. Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will preside over it. Meanwhile, General Secretary of Awami League Obaidul Quader called upon the leaders, activists, supporters and well-wishers of Awami League and its allies at all levels to observe the Grenade Attack Day on August 21 along with the countrymen. Among those killed in the grenade attack were: the then opposition leader's personal security guard Lance Corporal (retd) Mahbubur Rashid, Abul Kalam Azad, Rezina Begum, Nasir Uddin Sardar, Atique Sarkar, Abdul Kuddus Patwari, Aminul Islam Moazzem, Belal Hossain, Mamun Mridha, Ratan Shikdar, Liton Munshi, Hasina Mamtaz Reena, Sufia Begum, Rafiqul Islam (Ada Chacha), Mostaque Ahmed Sentu, Md Hanif, Abul Kashem, Zahed Ali, Momen Ali, M Shamsuddin and Ishaque Miah. Read: August 21 grenade attack: HC starts hearing on death references, convicts’ appeals Those who suffered serious splinter injuries included Sheikh Hasina, Amir Hossain Amu, Abdur Razzak, Suranjit Sengupta, Obaidul Quader, Advocate Sahara Khatun, Mohammad Hanif, Prof Abu Sayeed, and AFM Bahauddin Nasim.

The nation on Friday marks the 16th anniversary of the August 21 grenade attack on an wami League rally in Dhaka aimed at making the oldest political party in the country, which led the nation to independence, leaderless.