Hours after hundreds of Bangladeshi protesters vandalised buildings linked to Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka on Thursday, the ousted prime minister condemned the attack, saying history cannot be erased.
Sheikh Hasina has been living in India since fleeing Bangladesh by helicopter on August 5, 2024.
Speaking in a virtual audio address posted on her Awami League party’s Facebook account, Hasina, 77, questioned the motives behind the destruction.
“Why do they fear a house? We live for those memories of Dhanmondi… Last time they set this house on fire, now they are destroying it. Have I not done anything for this country? Then why such disrespect?” she asked.
NDTV reported that Hasina, who sounded like she was in tears, said, “The only memory that both my sister and I have clung to is being wiped out… I want to ask my people who is behind this. I want justice… A structure can be erased, but history cannot be wiped out.”
She also warned the opponents that they must remember that history takes its revenge.
Hundreds of protestors carrying hammers and iron rods tore down parts of the historic residence of Bangladesh’s founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in the capital Dhaka, late Wednesday. The house, which serves as a museum, had been torched last year during the student-led uprising that ended Hasina’s 15-year rule, news agency AFP reported.
On Thursday morning, diggers were used to demolish the remaining fire-damaged walls. Protestors also vandalised and set fire to other properties linked to Hasina, including her late husband’s Dhaka residence. In Khulna, demonstrators used diggers to demolish a building owned by her family, according to the Bengali daily Prothom Alo.
The protests erupted after reports surfaced that Hasina, who has defied an arrest warrant to face trial in Dhaka for massacres, planned to speak in a Facebook broadcast.
Calling upon the countrymen to organise a resistance against the current regime led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Hasina said: “They are yet to have the strength to destroy the national flag, the constitution and the independence that we earned at the cost of the lives of millions of martyrs with a bulldozer,” according to AFP report.
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