The grenade attack on August 21, 2004 was the continuation of the conspiracy that had started with the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members on August 15, 1975, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said.

Sheikh Hasina, who is also president of the ruling Awami League, was speaking on Sunday at an event arranged to mark the 18th anniversary of the grenade attack on an anti-terrorism rally of the party on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka.

The BNP-Jamaat coalition had tried to make Bangladesh a failed state by supporting militants and terrorists whenever it came to power, the prime minister said. “On October 1, 2001, [they] came to power through a rigged election and established a reign of terror across the country. [They] tried to turn [Bangladesh] into a militant state through one bomb and grenade attack after another.”

In continuation of this, they launched a grenade attack on an anti-terrorism rally of the Awami League, then the main opposition party, on August 21, 2004, she added.

Twenty-four people, including then-president of Awami Mohila League and the late president Zillur Rahman's wife Ivy Rahman were killed in the attack on August 21, 2004.

Over 500 others suffered splinter wounds in the attack and many of them were disabled for life.

The attack was carried out on an anti-terrorism rally of the Awami League on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka.

Sheikh Hasina narrowly escaped fatal injury in the attack. However, her hearing was impaired by the impact of the repeated grenade blasts that occurred near the truck-dais at the huge public rally.