Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Friday that BNP leader Khaleda Zia and elder son Tareq Rahman wanted to kill her in the 2004 grenade attack in Dhaka.
Prime Minister Hasina said this while addressing a virtual meeting on the occasion of the 16th anniversary of the August 21, 2004 attack took place at an anti-terrorism rally organised by the Awami League at Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka.
24 people, including then president of Mohila Awami League and late President Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy were killed and more than 500 others injured.
“Khaleda Zia and her elder son Tareq Rahman wanted to kill me in the grenade attack on Bangabandhu Avenue. The rally was carried out in protest against the bomb attack on the then British High Commissioner in Sylhet and also other attacks in more than 500 other places in the country.
“I was their main target,” she said.
Hasina added, “Before the bomb attack, she (Zia) said that the Awami League will not be able to come to power for 100 years.”
She said that carrying out killings was “their habit as they did not believe in the country’s independence and in the Liberation War spirit”.
“Power for them is a tool to make money through corruption,” said the Prime Minister.