August 21 Grenade Attack: What Was the International Response?

In Bangladesh on 21 August 2004, 24 people lost their lives in a horrific grenade attack on Awami League president Sheikh Hasina’s rally in Dhaka – known as the 21 August grenade attack.

Later, in the judgment of this case, the court said – ‘An attempt was made to make Awami League leaderless through that attack with the help of the state apparatus.’ In the verdict, 19 people including the then state minister for home Lutfuzzaman Babar and a leader of the ruling party BNP Abdus Salam Pintu were sentenced to death and 19 others including acting chairman of BNP Tariq Rahman and Harish Chowdhury were sentenced to death. Sentenced to life imprisonment.

After the terrible violence of seventeen years ago, there was a strong reaction at home and abroad. Especially the international community i.e. world leaders strongly condemned the incident and repeatedly called on the then BNP-led coalition government to bring those responsible for the incident to justice.

Delwar Hossain, professor of international relations at Dhaka University, told BBC Bangla, “The horror of the Awami League chairperson’s rally shook the whole world, which is evident in their subsequent reactions. The US, India, China or Europe – everyone made a statement. And talked about it..”

He said that the world is already worried about terrorism after the 9/11 attacks on the United States and like-minded countries including the United States are working on it. In such circumstances, the deadly attack in Dhaka highlighted the dangers of terrorism – which is why grenade attacks have caused considerable concern in the Western world and among regional powers.

“Besides the horror of the violence, the international community had to pay attention to this incident for global reasons. Because terrorism was growing in many places behind the cover of political violence,” he told BBC Bangla.