Women activists demand neutral probe into AL rally bombing
Staff Correspondent
Several hundred women activists from a rally at the Central Shahid Minar yesterday protested the deadly grenade attack on an Awami League (AL) rally that killed 19 people, including the party's Women's Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman.The rally under the banner of Women from All Walks of Life demanded immediate and impartial probe to track down the perpetrators of the carnage and subject them to exemplary punishment. "The government has failed to ensure minimum security of people and women are most vulnerable," one of the speakers told the rally. The programme was the first of a nine-day anti-government programme, simultaneously announced by the AL, Workers Party, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and the parties' front organisations. Addressing the rally, most leading women leaders termed the August 21 attack as 'a planned attempt to exterminate the AL and its entire leadership'. Veteran women leader Hena Das compared the grenade attack on Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina's rally with the August 15, 1975 killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most family. "The attackers wanted to kill all the leaders of the main opposition," she said, demanding an impartial probe into the violence. Frontline AL leader Motia Chowdhury alleged more than 20 people were killed in the August 21 attack and police hid some bodies. Motia said the attackers also wanted to free a number of killers from Dhaka Central Jail where a grenade was found on the day. "The present government has been killing popular leaders of the opposition in a systematic way and the August 21 attack was not an isolated incident," she alleged. Citing police atrocities on women and opposition demonstrators during hartals, she accused the government of using law-enforcers to suppress women and the opposition. "There is no way to protest democratically in the country," she said, urging women to add a spark to the oust-government movement. Mamtaz Begum, Khushi Kabir, Fazilatunnesa Indira, Shirin Akhter, Hajera Sultana, Hosne Ara Khanam, Maksuma Nargis, Shirin Haq, Farida Akhter and Ivy Rahman's sister Shamsunnahar Siddiqui also addressed the rally. Prof Khaleda Khanom read out an obituary reference to mourn the killing of Ivy and others. The women activists brought out a procession and paraded through city roads before terminating at the High Court Mazar. The Awami Mahila League, Bangladesh Mahila Samity, Sammilito Nari Samaj, Karmojibi Nari, Mahila Parishad, Jatiya Nari Sramik Jote, Ain-O-Salish Kendro, Nari Pakkhya, Samata and Nari Pragati Sangha participated in the programme.
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