Today marks the 21st anniversary of the grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka that left 24 people dead and more than 300 injured. The attack, one of the deadliest incidents of political violence in Bangladesh, occurred on 21 August 2004 during an anti-terrorism rally on Bangabandhu Avenue.
The blasts struck at 5:22pm, just after then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina had finished addressing the gathering. Party leaders and activists formed a human shield to protect her, but she sustained permanent hearing damage. Among the victims was Ivy Rahman, the party’s Women Affairs Secretary and wife of former president Zillur Rahman.
Investigations later identified the militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) as responsible, with alleged backing from high-level figures in the then BNP-Jamaat alliance government. Court documents named BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar, deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, and several intelligence officials as accused.
In October 2018, a speedy trial tribunal handed death sentences to 19 people and life imprisonment to 19 others, including Tarique Rahman. Several others received varying prison terms.
However, on 1 December 2024, the High Court overturned the tribunal’s judgment, acquitting all accused and ordering a reinvestigation. The state has appealed against the acquittals, and the case is currently under hearing at the Supreme Court. A six-member Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed began proceedings in June 2025 and adjourned the latest session on Thursday.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday adjourned till Thursday the hearing on a state plea against the High Court judgment that acquitted all the people convicted by the lower court in murder and explosives substances act cases filed over the grenade attack on an Awami League rally in the capital’s Bangabandhu Avenue on August 21, 2004.
“Heard in part and tomorrow,” said the short order passed by the six-member Appellate Division bench headed by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed.
Deputy Attorney General Abdullah Al Mahmud Masud moved the plea for the state, while senior Advocate SM Shahjahan and Advocate Mohammad Shishir Manir argued for the defence.
The apex court on June 1, 2025, granted a leave to appeal petition filed against the High Court judgment that had acquitted all the people convicted by the lower court in the two cases.
The High Court on December 1, 2024, pronounced its verdict, scrapping the lower court judgment in the two cases after holding a hearing on the death references, criminal and jail appeals filed in connection. The bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain declared, “Death Reference is rejected, all appeals are allowed, all rules are absolute.”
On that day, defence counsel Shishir Manir told reporters that the High Court observed the lower court trial was unlawful as no eyewitnesses were examined and the judgment was largely based on a forced confessional statement of Mufti Abdul Hannan, which carried no evidential value.
Survivors and victims’ families continue to seek justice for the 24 people killed and hundreds injured in the attack. More than two decades later, survivors still bear physical and psychological scars, and the nation remembers the lives lost and the ongoing demand for accountability.