By Syed Altefat Hossain

DHAKA, Dec 31, 2024 (BSS) – Capital’s major entry point Jatrabari appeared to be a symbol of stiff resistance turning into a major battlefield claiming hundreds of lives of protesters during the July uprising ending Sheikh Hasina’s nearly 16-years autocratic rule in the country.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of four kilometers ranging from Jatrabari to Chittagong Road to express their unbridled resentment against the fascist regime and were locked into fierce fighting with law enforcers and Sheikh Hasina’s loyalist forces.

The heavy-handed crackdown and inhuman torture on anti-discrimination student movement centering the just quota reformation in government jobs bewildered the countrymen unleashing them into strong resistance at different points like Jatrabari.          

Jatrabari resistance with the participation of the people from all strata played a tremendous role in toppling the fascist Awami League (AL) government.

Locals said Jatrabari and its surrounding areas, specifically Kutubkhali, Kajla, Shonir Akhra, Demra road and Rayerbag areas mainly became frontline on July 17 when police opened fire at the agitating people, killing many.

“Mass people like me joined the movement from July 17 to protest the government’s brutality on the student protesters,” Md Safiqul Islam, a former ticketmaster of a bus company, recalled how the student movement turned into a mass uprising.

He said the brutal killing of Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur (BRUR) student Abu Sayeed in broad daylight along with five others across the country on July 16 stirred people to take to the streets with the student.

Abu Sayeed is the symbol of the historic July movement as the nation could not absorb such ruthless killing and video of killing spread through social media that eventually gave revolutionary shape of the student movement.  

“When police opened fire at minor children, who just wanted quota reform, was it possible for any parent to stay home if he or she has minimum conscience?” Safiqul explained the moral ground of the uprising.

The Jatrabari resistance that formed on July 17 continued following the ‘Complete Shutdown’ declared by the anti-discrimination student movement on the next day until autocratic ruler Sheikh Hasina fled the country on August 5, ending her fascist regime.

People from different professions, including service holder, day laborer, shopkeeper, chef, tailor, rickshaw-puller, van-puller, garment worker, freelancer and Madrasah students, joined the movement.

An eyewitness confirmed that he saw at least one lactating mother chanting slogans on the streets against the government’s crackdown on the protesting students with her six to seven-month-old child on her lap in Jatrabari’s Dholaipar area. 

When the government imposed curfew for sine die from 12midnigt of July 19 and started mass arrest, suspending the internet service across the country, locals said, the protesters didn’t leave the streets in Jatrabari areas even for a while.

According to media reports, the clashes between law enforcers and protesters continued for five consecutive days in the Jatrabari and its surrounding areas even after imposing the curfew.

An active participant of the movement, hawker Md Hanif, said when the government was apparently able to contain the movement in different parts of the city after imposing the curfew, the Jatrabari remained under the control of the protesters.

Following the killings of two policemen in the Rayerbag area on the night of July 19, locals said, law enforcers used full strength across Jatrabari when police and BGB members fired live bullets indiscriminately and RAB fired tear shells and bullets from the sky.

Construction worker Bablu Mridha, who embraced martyrdom on September 9 while undergoing treatment at Combined Military Hospital (Dhaka) in the city, had sustained bullet injury on July 19.

His 17-year-old son Md Abu Talib said that his father was hit by the bullet fired from a helicopter while three more people also received the bullet injuries at the same time.

Seeking anonymity, a student of Jatrabari Boro Madrasah in the city’s Kutubkhali area of Jatrabari said, “We joined the movement being inspired by our consciences”.

Pickup-van driver Md Ripon, who is about to lose his left eyesight from bullet injury sustained on July 19, said, “We could have never imagined that police can open such indiscriminate fire at the people.” But the firing yielded a grave repercussion among the mass people, he added.

The number of casualties didn’t seem to matter to anyone, Ripon said, adding, the more killing there was orchestrated, the more people seemed to be motivated to join the fray, creating a situation where it felt like a war zone and no one had time to stay at home.

Echoing Ripon, another protester Maraj Hossain Pial, a third year (hons) student of Sonargaon Government College, said, “During the movement, I saw a huge number of people demonstrating on the street even in the evening while lampposts were flickering, giving a feeling that we were watching a horror movie in the cinema hall”.

When police shot, the people were running aimlessly and soon after they were assembling time and again on the street, said Pial, who lost his younger brother in the movement.

Pial’s statement was manifested in the statement of a senior police officer when he was informing former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan about their ordeal in dealing with the protesters.

“We shoot one dead, or we wound one, and that is the only one that falls. The rest don't budge, sir,” the officer, in a viral video, was seen telling Asaduzzaman.

According to locals, apart from killing people on the streets, law enforcers and Awami League supporters were harassing the families of the people killed and injured in the movement that incited the people to wage a rigorous demonstration against the fascist government.

Pial said his family was subjected to ruthless oppression after his brother’s martyrdom on July 19 while they were accused in a police killing case.

“If the AL government would have sustained, we could not survive. Thus, we wanted the downfall of fascist ruler Sheikh Hasina at any cost,” he said.

Many family members of injured and killed people in the movement had the same fate as Pial.

Finally, the July Uprising succeeded to oust autocratic ruler Sheikh Hasina on August 5 in exchange for hundreds of lives with about 300 people assumed to be killed alone in the Jatrabari area during the movement and disabilities of thousands of people.