The grim, diabolic, dastardly act of massacre on August 21, 2004 at Bangabandhu Avenue meeting of Awami League appeared to have been the result of a flawless plan. It was very clear that Sheikh Hasina and all other leaders of the party on the makeshift dais on a truck were targets enbloc of the assassins. The pitiable breaches in the security arrangements said to have been made by different law enforcing agencies -- uniformed and plain clothes -- also appeared to have been questionable. Or else the killers couldn't leave the place of occurrence unnoticed by the 350 men who were claimed to have been on duty. The movie cameras (two) operated by two police men from two different points of the meeting place couldn't catch any one in action. The law enforcing agencies were also reported to have denied access to a number of ambulance vehicles for quite some time, delaying quick shifting of the many wounded to different hospitals and clinics of the city. Such abhorring and dubious role of the law enforcing agencies, as reported by the press, was a total abnegation of human values. It was indeed terrible.

The story didn't end here. It extended to a yet more vicious episode in the Dhaka Medical College Hospital enacted by some men in the medical profession. With them the most natural and obviously expected norms of humanity was reported, in some dailies, to have been outrageously partisan. A heart rending scene of human miseries was shown on TV belonging to the private sector. The wounded men and women were found screaming in palpably terrific pains from the wounds. Their escorts running back and forth helplessly for medical help, for doctor and nurses. Some were crying for blood for the grievously wounded. A hellish pandemonium seiged the entire medical college hospital.

Amidst such state of uncertainty a reporter at site of a vernacular daily heard some whispers among some doctors and nurses on duty in that nightmarish evening. Visible spectres of fear were reported to have been large writ on their countenance. They dared not taking immediate care of the dying, seriously hit by grenades. Some of the medics and nurses left the place hurriedly to avoid, reportedly, political intervention of one relatively senior doctor looking after his party's interest in DMCH at the command of a formidable high-up. It was also alleged that due to this doctor's attitudinal composure many of the patients were readily removed by their relatives, friends and human escorts to other hospitals and clinics taking great risks of their (the wounded) lives. A disgraceful and condemnable lack of spontaneous cooperation and assistance from some of the doctors and DMC administration was also reported in some newspapers. Giving credence to such obtrusive reports is again a tremendously hard task on the part of any human being worth the name.

It is an irony of fate that a largely attended public meeting of the main and biggest opposition party Awami League convened on August 21, 2004 to protest against frequent bomb blasts taking huge toll of human lives was itself subjected to a worst-ever attack with powerful hand grenades. The unfortunate tragedy befalling the country has rocked the conscience of the whole world. Most of the world leaders, including President Bush of USA, his Secretary of State Colin Powell. British Foreign Secretary on behalf Premier Tony Blair, leaders of China, Germany have all condemned such acts of terrorism. All of them have stressed upon the necessity of making a thorough, transparent and unbiased investigation into the tragedy, identify the men behind and bring them to book.

At home the Prime Minister and her cabinet members also expressed themselves against such dastardly acts promising to the nation that the actual culprits would be hauled up and brought to justice. But their initial words of sympathies with the affected soon faded into thin air. The promise was very much there to find out killers and to take legal measures against them. But the lackadaisical manner of investigation, the absolutely casual manner of handling the remnants of the exploded grenades, the diffusion of unexploded grenades where the finger prints of the throwers could be available etc. -- all these taken together were enough to shatter the confidence, trust and expectation of the Awami League leadership and the innumerable people and families affected by the ghastly massacre.

On the top of everything and most pitiably, the provocative remarks of some ministers of the government made things all the more agonising. Added to all these the unbridled words of some of the lesser party zealots, as usual blaming Awami League for the catastrophe have made the issue of proper investigation with desired transparency more complex and dubious.

Awami League has, in the meantime, rejected government's effort at getting the incident investigated into by Interpol and FBI -- both under international pressure. The argument proffered for such rejection is the association of the same men of the law enforcing agencies who failed miserably to protect the unsuspecting audience in the meeting and to haul up the culprits -- if not all, at least a few of those animals. It was justifiably feared that these men would do anything to mislead the foreign investigators. Awami League has instead asked for UN or Commonwealth sponsored impartial investigation.

On the other hand, the Industry Minister and Jamaat-e-Islam Chief Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami had been provoked into calling a press conference, apparently in defence of his party's position on the public accusation against his party. He thought that there was no fundamentalist group in Bangladesh, evidently tuning himself very cautiously with the certification of "moderate Muslim country" of former US ambassador Marie Ann Peters. It may be noted here that her successor -- the present ambassador has, by now, realised how much 'moderate' we are. Talking further to the press Nizami discovered that some vested interests in a "neighbouring country" could be behind the August 21 killing to defile the 'image' of the government. He did also think that the investigation teams from abroad affected 'our sovereignty'. Evidently, he and others in his entourage, want to bask in the rays of blissful ignorance and thus divert the attention of the people from the tragedy. Some of his compatriots in the four-party alliance, precisely Fazlul Haque Amini, hitherto a patron of 'Taliban' philosophy or Moulana Fazlul Karim of Islamic Andolan and an uncompromising spokesman against Jamaat-e-Islam, also expressed themselves in an identical manner with Moulana Nizami on the 21 August tragedy.

Yet truth will be upheld in course of time. Repeated adherence to blatant lies on such bomb blasts in the past three years seeking implication of Awami League members had been unfounded. This time too such attempt may be proved false and pre-posterous. Those who are used to indulge in such dirty manoeuvre on the wings of lies may soon start paying for it when the wrath of the people would take them to task. The whole nation perhaps awaits the inevitable sweep of the tempest:. Those blighters must be punished and their anti-democracy, anti-liberation linkage must be quashed by any means.

Kazi Alauddin Ahmed is an industrial consultant.