Tan​zila Akter Tanu recounts her participation in Bangladesh’s July 2024 anti-discrimination student movement, describing street violence and repeated injuries. She writes that students from Dhaka University and educational institutions across the country mobilised to demand merit as the sole measure of qualification. She identifies the July 16 killing of Abu Sayeed by police gunfire at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur as a turning point that transformed the movement’s atmosphere.

According to the writer, she joined protests in Jatrabari and Shanir Akhra on July 17, where she encountered gunfire, sound grenades and tear gas. She says she was injured in an attack by Chhatra League members on July 18. On July 19, she went out despite warnings that police and Chhatra League controlled the streets, witnessed a man shot in the forehead, and returned home injured again.

She further writes that police fired at women standing at the front of a procession in Jatrabari’s Kutubkhali area on August 4, leaving her with six bullet wounds. The article says an Appellate Division ruling in late July allocated 93 percent of posts on merit, but the movement later became a one-point demand for the government’s resignation. The writer says a historic mass uprising succeeded on August 5.