Seventeen years ago on 21st August, the nation was about to burst against the state-sponsored militancy, in the capital. Ironically, shortly after, the anti-militancy protesters themselves became victims of the country’s most gruesome militant attack masterminded by then BNP-Jamaat government.
The anti-militancy campaigners in their hundreds and thousands thronged Bangabandhu Avenue to protest the killings of secular politicians, cultural activists and Liberation War campaigners.
It appeared like the Doom’s Day as grenades and bullets were showered from all directions towards the rally addressed by Sheikh Hasina, then leader of the opposition, with an aim to kill her apparently for her stance against religious extremism, which had mushroomed under the patronisation of the then BNP-Jamaat government.
Sheikh Hasina, the Awami League president, called for the rally to make the nation stand united and fight the menace of the spiralling of the militancy and terrorism.