Deposed Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has narrated the ordeal of the day she left her country. Sheikh Hasina has said that when she left her country on August 5, death was just a stone’s throw away. He told something that gave goosebumps.
Sheikh Hasina said she and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana had escaped death by just 20-25 minutes on August 5 last year when their Awami League government was toppled in a student-led mass uprising.
In a short audio note released by her party on its Facebook page, Sheikh Hasina expressed her gratitude to God for saving her life. She also recalled two previous attacks on her, in which she had narrowly escaped.
The former prime minister said he believed God had spared his life as part of a divine plan to get him to do something great. In the audio clip, she is heard saying in Bengali, “We escaped death by just 20-25 minutes. I feel that whether we are saved from the killings on 21st August, saved from the big bomb blast in Kotalipara or saved on 5th August 2024, there should be Allah’s will, Allah’s hand behind it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have survived this time.”
In a trembling voice, the 77-year-old leader accused his political opponents of conspiring to kill him. Hasina has been living in India since August 5 last year, when she fled Bangladesh following massive student-led protests that ousted her 16-year-old Awami League government. “I am in pain, I am away from my country, my home, everything is burnt,” Hasina said. Hasina has been the subject of several deadly attacks, including a grenade attack on a party rally on 21 August 2004, where she was speaking as the opposition leader.
24 people were killed in this attack. In 2000, the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh Hasina was about to address a rally in Kotalipara upazila of Gopalganj district, when the police found a time bomb weighing 76 kg at a distance of 50 feet from the stage. On August 5 last year, security forces had given him 45 minutes to vacate his official residence Gana Bhavan, saying that an angry mob was moving towards the government establishment and his life was in danger. Hasina was first taken to a nearby military airport and later she and Rehana were flown to India by an Air Force aircraft.
