Dhaka, Aug 24:Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Monday paid rich tributes to Awami League leader Ivy Rahman on her 16th martyrdom anniversary, recalling her outstanding contributions to country’s all democratic movements. Ivy Rahman took part in each of the struggle and movement of the country from the forefront,” she said while presiding over the regular weekly cabinet meeting from her official residence Ganabhaban here through a videoconference.
Ivy Rahman, former women affairs secretary of Awami League (AL) and wife of late President M Zillur Rahman, was grievously wounded in a grenade attack on AL’s anti-terrorism rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital on August 21, 2004, and succumbed to her injuries on August 24.
Beides Ivy Rahman, 21 AL leaders and activists were killed in the gruesome grenade attack on August 21 in 2004.
“I’m paying tributes and recalling with profound respect all the 22 leaders and activists of the Awami League, particularly Ivy Rahman, who was killed in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack,” the premier said at the outset of the cabinet meeting.
The prime minister said Ivy Rahman had no self-conceit as she always sat with the activists of the party in each of the meeting. “It’s really hard to accept the death of a nice human being,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina, also the AL president, said Ivy Rahman was involved in politics from her school life, adding, “We did politics together for a long.”
The prime minister said that they are observing the death anniversary of Ivy Rahman on August 24 every year as she was declared dead on that day in 2004.
“We exactly don’t know when she died as she was taken to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka in a critical condition after the grisly grenade attack (on August 21),” she continued.
The AL president said as many as 22 leaders and activists of her party, including four Mohila Awami League leaders, were killed in the August 21 grenade attack.
Noting that that two of the dead were unidentified and none came to claim their bodies, Sheikh Hasina said it was suspected that they might be along with the killers or anything else.
“We’ve lost 22 leaders and activists, while 600-700 others were injured in the grenade attack. The condition of the wounded was very ctitical and many of them died after getting cured as they sustained injuries of numerous splinters in their bodies,” she added.
Cabinet members got connected with the videoconference from the Bangladesh Secretariat here.
