Sheikh Hasina had just finished speaking. It was 5:22 PM on 21 August 2004, and 20,000 people packed Bangabandhu Avenue in central Dhaka for an Awami League rally protesting recent attacks on party workers in Sylhet. Hasina, the leader of the opposition, had addressed the crowd from the back of a truck serving as a makeshift stage. Then, from the rooftops of buildings lining the avenue, thirteen grenades arced into the crowd. The explosions killed at least 16 people on the spot. The final death toll reached 24. More than 500 were wounded. Hasina survived with injuries. Her bodyguard, Mahbubur Rahman, did not. Ivy Rahman, the Awami League Women's Affairs Secretary, died of her wounds three days later.
The scale of the attack was staggering - thirteen grenades deployed simultaneously from elevated positions against a dense civilian crowd in the heart of the capital. This was not a lone attacker or an improvised act. The grenades came from multiple rooftops, aimed at a specific target, at a specific moment. The crowd had no warning and nowhere to flee. Bodies lay across Bangabandhu Avenue, and the wounded overwhelmed nearby hospitals. The Awami League called a nationwide hartal for 23 and 24 August. A funeral service at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque drew 20,000 mourners. International condemnation was swift: U.S. President George W. Bush expressed shock, and the governments of the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden issued statements of condemnation.
What followed the attack was nearly as troubling as the attack itself. Bangladesh Police refused to register a criminal case filed by the Awami League, recording only a general diary entry. The FBI and Interpol visited Bangladesh repeatedly to offer technical support, but the investigation under the ruling BNP government went in troubling directions. Authorities arrested Mokhlesur Rahman, an Awami League activist, and Shaibal Saha Partha, attempting to implicate them. Shaibal Saha Partha and another man, Joj Miah, were tortured in custody and coerced into false confessions. The Supreme Court Bar Association accused the government of destroying evidence. Two unidentified victims were buried hurriedly in the middle of the night. A one-man judicial commission blamed the attack on a neighboring country - a finding the Awami League rejected and that the Daily Star called a "shame" for Bangladesh's judiciary.
The truth emerged slowly, across multiple investigations spanning years. In 2005, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan was arrested for his role in the attack and reportedly confessed in 2007. After the Awami League returned to power in 2009, a deeper investigation under retired CID official Abdul Kahar Akhand uncovered a web of connections. Abdul Majed Bhat described how grenades originally intended for Indian militant groups had been diverted to Mufti Hannan. In 2011, Hannan's confessional statement implicated senior BNP leaders including Tarique Rahman - the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia - along with former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, and officials from the Home Ministry, police, DGFI, NSI, and the Prime Minister's Office itself. Hannan claimed the attack was designed to destroy the Awami League's top leadership, with government support from the then-Home Minister.
On 10 October 2018, a special court delivered its verdict, finding the grenade attack to be "a well-orchestrated plan, executed through abuse of state power." Forty-nine people were accused. Nineteen were sentenced to death, including former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu and HUJI leader Mufti Hannan. Tarique Rahman was tried in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment. The verdict affirmed what investigators had gradually established: this was not merely an act of terrorism by a militant group, but an operation that reached into the machinery of government. The convictions did not hold. On 1 December 2024, Bangladesh's High Court acquitted all 49 convicts, ruling the trial legally flawed, the charge sheet invalid, and the confessional statements inadmissible because they had been extracted under torture. The court recommended a fresh investigation. For the families of the 24 people killed on Bangabandhu Avenue, the wheel had turned again - twenty years after the attack, the criminal accountability won in 2018 had been erased.
Located at 23.73°N, 90.41°E on Bangabandhu Avenue (now Shaheed Abrar Fahad Avenue) in central Dhaka, Bangladesh. The attack site is in the dense urban core of the capital, near the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque. Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (VGHS/DAC) is approximately 12 km to the north. From altitude, Bangabandhu Avenue runs roughly north-south through the heart of old Dhaka. The surrounding area is one of the most densely populated urban landscapes in the world. Best observed from 3,000-5,000 ft for cityscape context.