Ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said she and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana escaped death by just 20-25 minutes on August 5 last year when her Awami League government was toppled by student-led nationwide protests.
In a short audio note released by the party on its Facebook page, the Awami League chief thanked God for saving her life, according to a PTI report.
In the audio note, Hasina recalled two previous attempts on her life she narrowly escaped saying she believed her life was saved by God as part of a divine design to get something greater done by her.
“We escaped death by just 20-25 minutes. I feel surviving the killings on August 21, surviving the large bomb in Kotalipara, or surviving on August 5, 2024, there must be a will of Allah, the hand of Allah. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have survived this time,” she is heard saying in Bangla in the audio clip, reported PTI.
The 77-year-old leader accused her political rivals of conspiring against her assassination as her voice trembled.
“I am suffering, I am without my country, my home, everything has been burned,” she said.
Hasina has survived several attempts on her life including a grenade attack on a party rally where she was addressing as the opposition leader on August 21, 2004. Twenty-four people were killed in the attack.
In 2000, when Hasian was the prime minister of Bangladesh, she was scheduled to speak at a rally in Kotalipara Upazila, Gopalganj District when a time bomb weighing 76 Kg was discovered by the police 50 feet from the stage.
On August 5 last year, she fled the country and took refuge in India and has been since living here following a student movement-led uprising that toppled her Awami League’s 16-year rule.
She was given 45 minutes by security forces to evacuate her official Ganobhaban residence as an angry mob was proceeding towards the government establishment and her life was in danger.
She was initially flown to a nearby military air base and later an air force plane carried her and her sister Rehana to India.
Shortly after leaving the Ganobhaban, the enraged mob stormed into the premier’s residence and set fire to her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s house-turned-museum at 32 Dhanmondi named after him.
