The clock struck 3 in the afternoon of August 21, 2004. At Sudha Sadan, the residence of Awami League President Sheikh Hasina, preparations were underway to head for Bangabandhu Avenue where the party was holding an anti-militancy rally.

"All hell broke loose there, they made it look like doomsday," recalls Motaher Hossain, general secretary of the Krishak League, who was standing barely a yard from the dais raised on a truck when indiscriminate bombs and gunshots rocked the area.