Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer and parliamentary opposition leader Dr Shafiqur Rahman extended greetings to Bangladeshis at home and abroad ahead of the historic August 5 “July Mass Uprising Day.” In a message sent to the media on August 4, he said the spontaneous student movement had eventually become a one-point movement seeking Sheikh Hasina’s fall.

He alleged that orders were given for indiscriminate firing on students and the public to suppress the movement. He said Sheikh Hasina left for India with senior party leaders and ministers and members of parliament in the face of the mass uprising on August 5, 2024. According to his statement, this ended more than 16 and a half years of dictatorship, oppression and fascist rule.

Rahman claimed that about 1,500 people were killed and around 30,000 seriously injured during the movement, with several thousand losing limbs or eyesight. He remembered Abu Sayeed, Mughdho and Wasim among those killed. He said the martyrs’ blood debt could be partly repaid by building a discrimination-free, fully democratic, humane Bangladesh based on good governance and social justice.