When Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh cheated assassination attempt in 2004

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hours before the assassination attempt in 2004 (Photo: Anisur Rahman, The Daily Star)

SALEEM SAMAD

As dusk fell 19 years ago on 21 August 2004, I received a desperate phone call from a foreign diplomat (his identity cannot be disclosed). His frenzied voice was very urgent and said his Ambassador urgently wants to know the status of Sheikh Hasina.

Sheikh Hasina was president of the largest political party Awami League. The party was founded by her assassinated father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, an independence hero.

Hasina was an opposition leader of the Awami League and was intermittently boycotting the parliament sessions to protest the stubbornness of the ruling rightist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami in refusing the opposition to adequate participation in the parliamentary debate. She was at loggerheads with the ruling BNP and the Islamists protesting country-wide mass arrests and attacks on her party members and supporters – selectively the Hindus were targeted.

Why, what is the news of Sheikh Hasina, I asked the diplomat. He said that several hand bombs were lobbed at the rally. Several senior Awami League leaders were wounded or dead, and hundreds more were grievously injured at the rally in front of the party headquarters at Bangabandhu Avenue, in the city centre.

Requesting to call back at the soonest, the diplomat asked again to confirm her status, whether she is safe and where she is now. I could not digest the heartbreaking news.

The diplomat thought as I was working with an influential English daily The Bangladesh Observer, I would be able to respond to his frantic queries.

The call came 20 minutes after the brutal attack on the opposition, which had an objective to eliminate Sheikh Hasina and cripple the party’s leadership by killing the senior leaders. Obviously, the opposition will be paralysed and immobilised. Indeed, a picture-perfect plan!

It was an evil dream of the so-called Hawa Bhaban, the de facto political power outside the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). It was an independent office in the posh Banani area by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s eldest son, an obtrusive politician Tarique Rahman (presently a fugitive in exile in London, United Kingdom).

I called several press photographers, including Pavel Rahman of the Associated Press (AP), Rafiqur Rahman of Reuters Photo, Shambunath Nandi of the Bangladesh Observer, and others. Unfortunately, none of them responded to my anxious phone calls.

Out of the blue one of my colleagues with the Bangladesh Observer called me. He was safely positioned at the Dhaka Stadium which was across the street from the scene of occurrence. He witnessed the carnage and panicked supporters and members of the party fleeing the spot.

I quickly asked him about the status of Hasina. He could not give any information on the fate of Hasina.

Still not getting information about Hasina, I called a long-time source, a Field Officer of National Security Intelligence (NSI). He covers Awami League. After several calls on his mobile phone, finally he responded in a relaxed mood, as if nothing has happened.

I asked whether he has any information about Hasina’s status. Promptly he responded that the rally has ended more than an hour ago and Hasina must have left the place.

My second curious question was where was he (security intelligence agent)? He replied that he was at a music store at Topkhana Road (not far from the venue of the bomb attack) and was listening to Bengalees’ favourite ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ songs with a headphone. The third question was, did you not listen to other Field Officers about what happened at Bangabandhu Avenue over his walkie-talkie? He said softly, his walkie-talkie was switched off.

I retold what I heard from the diplomat. He laughed upon hearing my query.

I repeatedly requested him to switch on his walkie-talkie. Once he switched on the two-way radio, I could hear garbled voices from his radio. Before I could request him to call me back on any news of Hasina, he hung up and did not respond to my calls throughout the night.

Three hours after the incident, still no news of the fate of Hasina. My colleague called me back and confirmed that Hasina has reached her private residence ‘Suda Sadan’ in Dhanmondi.

On the following day, I was walking to the place of occurrence from the National Press Club not far from Bangabandhu Avenue. I met the NSI officer (his name has been suppressed for security reasons) walking towards the Secretariat Building, where most of the Government Ministries are housed.

While walking and talking, I asked him why he had abandoned his position in the rally and instead decided to listen to music with a headphone? He replied that his superior officer had asked all the Field Officers to leave the venue once Hasina arrives at Bangabandhu Avenue. So, he moved away as nothing else was expected, he switched off the radio.

By the way, who was his superior? He did not hesitate to indicate that it was none other than the Director-General of NSI, Major General Rezaqul Haider Chowdhury (a rogue officer presently languishing in prison pending appeal verdict of the infamous ‘10-truck arms’ hauled in Chattagram, which was destined for India’s northeast separatist the United Liberation Front for Assam – ULFA).

To my surprise, he voluntarily gave me additional information that the NSI chief was at Holy Family Hospital at Eskaton instead of Combined Military Hospital (CMH) on a dreadful evening. “Now you understand who is responsible for the incident,” the NSI officer quipped and walked away, requesting not to be quoted.

Describing the incident, lawmaker Saber Hossain Chowdhury said the driver of the vehicle and her bodyguards (former military officers) intelligently outwitted the assassins and bombers and saved Hasina from the wrath.

The customized bullet-proof vehicle Mercedes Benz was shot several times. The snipers continued to target the shocked Hasina seated in the front passenger seat to accomplish their killing mission. The windshield, window, and door on her side bore marks of hails of bullets.

The assassins had deployed sharpshooters in strategic locations on rooftops in the area. On an ominous day, the duties of armed police were deliberately not positioned on the rooftops.

As soon as the vehicle managed to manoeuvre out of the August carnage site, the nervous Special Branch officer onboard the vehicle sought clearance over his walkie-talkie for a secured route. An unknown officer in the control room barked at him to wait for the police escort vehicle but Hasina’s bodyguards refused to listen to the advice of the police control room.

The vehicle zigzagged through the Dhaka University campus and reached home safely in 15 minutes. In fact, Sheikh Hasina cheated a near-death of the full-proof assassination plot.

War decorated Mukti Bahini officer retired Major General Syed Muhammad Ibrahim visited the spot the following day confirmed finding military-grade bullets and unexploded Arges Type HG 84 hand grenade. He also said that weapons used for shooting and lobbed hand grenades can only be used by trained personnel.

The top-secret plot to assassinate Hasina and reduce the party into a skeleton was backed by the state. The conspiracy was prepared with full knowledge of the state security agency NSI. The assassination was masterminded by the prime minister’s delinquent son Tareque Rahman.

The higher court upheld the death penalty for Tareque, former NSI chief General Chowdhury and the dreaded Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan for the botched assassination of Hasina and deaths of 24 persons and grievously wounded 300 others.

First published in India Narrative, 17 August 2023, New Delhi, India

(Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. Views expressed are personal. Twitter: @saleemsamad)

A prisoner’s tale

SALEEM SAMAD

Of fictitious cases, police brutality, and state-sanctioned intimidation

“Saleem Samad, a freelance reporter and local correspondent for the international press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontiers, was arrested earlier today (November 29, 2002) in connection with Channel 4,” writes The Guardian newspaper.

My arrest was made three days after British journalist Zaiba Malik and Italian cameraman Bruno Sorrentino who were commissioned by Channel 4 TV to produce a documentary on terrorism for its Unreported World, were also arrested along with their interpreter Priscilla Raj.

Journalist/film-maker Shahriar Kabir was also arrested under the sedition case. The rightist regime was enraged by his campaign for the trial of the war criminals of 1971.

The regime to harass critics also accused Advocate Rana Das Gupta (presently prosecutor of the International Crimes Tribunal) and former Dainik Janakantha’s Cox’s Bazar correspondent Tofael Ahmed.

During the repressive regime during 2002-2006 of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) coalition with Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, at least 80 journalists were arrested and tortured -- another 200 journalists were slapped with trumped-up charges.

Scores of journalists were brutally attacked and were hospitalized, mostly in the southern districts -- from Satkhira to Bhola. Many fled their district for their safety, either after being physically attacked or receiving death threats.

The infamous Hawa Bhaban was the mastermind of harassment and intimidation -- which led to numerous arrests, including war crimes historian Prof Muntassir Mamun, Enamul Hoque Chowdhury (present editor of the Daily Sun), and journalist Barun Bhaumik Nayan, among many others. Both the journalists were brutalized during interrogation to sign fictitious confessional statements.

In a shameful move, the pro-government journalist leaders of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ), Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ), and National Press Club refrained from protesting the arrests, torture, and intimidations of hundreds of journalists. Instead, the journalist leaders, spearheaded by Shaukat Mahmood, a journalist turned politician desired to “teach the journalists a lesson” with the blessing of Hawa Bhaban, the office of Tarique Rahman, and the rogue son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

It felt as if a thunderbolt struck me when Mozzem Hossain, a journalist of BBC Bangla in Bush House, London told me that the foreign journalists, Priscilla Raj, and the driver of a rented vehicle were arrested under a fictitious sedition case.

I quickly gave my first reaction to both BBC Bangla, BBC World Service, and numerous international media. The daily newspapers and private news channels had been agog with the sensational news of the detention of foreign journalists.

The news also splashed in major global media, as the regime’s “Operation Clean Heart” was squarely blamed for extra-judicial deaths and enforced disappearances of hundreds of opposition members deemed a threat to the ruling party. Janakantha newspaper reported that the FIR filed with Motijheel Police Station had only four names -- foreign journalists, an interpreter, and the name of a driver. 

Next to the driver’s name was the handwritten name “alias Saleem Samad.” My name was blue-pencilled by the Home Affairs Ministry, by the hybrid journalist leaders. 

My defense lawyers, Barrister Amirul Islam and Barrister Tania Amir, explained that I was neither aged 28, nor a driver by profession, and my parent’s name and address do not match the one mentioned in the police report. 

On the fourth day, the home of my parents in Pallabi, where I also lived with my family, was thoroughly searched for 28 (RPT 28) hours. 

My family was on the run, as security agencies wanted to retrieve the spare hard-disk from my son Atisha Rahbar. My parents were locked downstairs, while every inch of the two-storied house was thoroughly searched. All the books and documents were carefully scanned. 

On the fifth day, in the wee hours of Friday during the month of Ramadan, I was picked up by detectives from a flat in Uttara belonging to a Crack Platoon veteran, my school-mate Ishtiaq Aziz Ulfat. 

I was brought to the Detective Branch office at Mintoo Road. A delinquent police officer Kohinoor Miah attacked me with a baton and, also brandishing his service pistol on my forehead, accused me of betraying the country and slandering the image of the state. Well, it was Khaleda’s regime that smeared the country.

After 55 days, on the order of the High Court, I was freed on January 18, 2003.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 1 December 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad