Assalamu Alaikum! How is everyone? I hope you are well. I am also doing well, thanks to Allah's mercy. Today, after a long time, I am back on hive blockchain. In reality, I haven't had time due to busyness. Nonetheless, I occasionally check in with you. You are aware of the events that occurred in Bangladesh up to August 5th in the past July. The inexpressible suffering we went through is beyond words. Yet, there are things that need to be said. Because now we are free. Now we can speak freely. For almost 16 years, we were only nominally free. Although we had the freedom to move, we did not have the freedom to speak. Now our freedom of speech has returned. To achieve this freedom, we had to struggle for nearly one month and five days. We had to endure oppression, ignoring the threats of the autocrat, and ultimately, we had to shed fresh blood on the streets. After the independence of '71, we had to give our lives at the hands of our own countrymen to gain this new freedom. The bullets bought with our own money were embedded in our own chests by the autocrat's collaborators. Sheikh Hasina has killed over a thousand students and people. Even with such a large-scale massacre, the revolutionary student movement could not be suppressed by the Hasina government. Faced with the students' uprising, the autocrat Hasina was eventually forced to flee like a thief on August 5th.
The seeds of the autocrat's downfall were sown with the 2018 quota reform movement. In 2018, the government was compelled to issue a notification stating that there would be no quota in government jobs. In response to that notification, some quota-holding, fake freedom fighters' children filed a writ petition in court. The High Court ruled in early 2024 and declared the notification abolishing the quota illegal. In response, the students again launched the quota reform movement. Initially, the movement progressed through various non-violent activities.
On July 15th, Sheikh Hasina's speech to the nation criticized the students' movement in detail and insulted the protesters by calling them "the grandsons of Razakars" (collaborators with the Pakistani regime). As a result, that very night, students from every campus became enraged and protested at Dhaka University’s Raju Sculpture with slogans like "Who am I, who are you, Razakar, Razakar!" Students from every hall joined in that night. When the Minister of Road Transport and Bridges, Obaidul Quader, announced that the Awami League’s party thugs would suppress the movement, tensions spread across the campus, leading to the Student League attacking the protesters with weapons and sticks on July 18th. Many students were victims of brutal attacks by the Student League, including female students.
Subsequently, students across the country erupted into protests and demanded exemplary punishment for the attackers. Conscious parents also came out in support of their children and the students. The movement grew increasingly intense. At this time, the government declared campus closures to stop the protests and sent police, RAB, and BGB to the campuses. There were clashes between the police and protesters in various parts of the country, and the police shot Abu Saeed from the English Department of Begum Rokeya University in the chest. When this video went viral on social media, it sparked nationwide condemnation and further intensified the movement. In response, the leaders of the anti-discrimination student movement declared a nationwide shutdown. In contrast, the government called an emergency meeting and imposed a curfew. When students tried to come out to make the shutdown successful, the police fired indiscriminately at the innocent protesters. On this day, it could be said that private university students occupied the entire road. There were multiple clashes between private university students and police, RAB, and BGB.
The movement resulted in many deaths, and it continued relentlessly. During this period, a 9-point demand was raised by the students. The main demands included an apology from the Prime Minister and the resignation of several ministers. The government could not accept these demands. Various dramas were created in the midst of this. The coordinator, DB Harun, was taken to the DB office and forced to announce the suspension of the movement, which further enraged the student population. The number of deaths due to police shootings during daily protests increased. With the internet shut down, a genocide was carried out against the student protesters. As a result, the conscious public of the country came out in support of the students.
Lawyers, teachers, artists, day laborers, and rickshaw drivers all joined the movement, and the 9-point demands became a single demand. The new slogan became: "One demand, one demand – Hasina, when will you leave?" The single demand was for the resignation of the murderer Hasina. At the end of July and on August 3rd, a massive rally was held at the Shaheed Minar in Dhaka and Chittagong under the banner "Remembering Our Heroes." The Shaheed Minar grounds were filled to capacity with millions of people. An announcement was made for an all-out non-cooperation movement starting from the 5th and a long march to Dhaka on the 6th. All of this was happening under the curfew. On the night of the 4th, the movement coordinators announced that the long march to Dhaka would take place on the 5th, not the 6th. Despite threats from Student League thugs throughout the night, students began coming out onto the streets of Dhaka from the morning of the 5th, breaking the curfew. That morning, the police fired indiscriminately at the public everywhere. Ultimately, unable to suppress the movement, Hasina fled to India with the help of the military around 3 PM. The air in Bengal was filled with the breeze of freedom. People from all sides poured into the streets. Celebrations erupted at every corner. A new chapter of freedom was written in Bengal's history. This was the freedom of August 24th—freedom from discrimination, freedom of speech. Even now, there are ongoing conspiracies, both domestic and foreign, to undermine this freedom.
This was a brief account of the July genocide.
Best wishes for the independence of the 24th to everyone.