After nearly two weeks of tense calm, Bangladesh once again plunged into violence on August 2, 2024, as widespread clashes broke out between protesters and police -- often aided by ruling party activists -- across multiple districts.
The day marked a turning point in Bangladesh’s deepening political crisis, as the government officially banned Jamaat-e-Islami and all its affiliated organisations, including Islami Chhatra Shibir.
As the sun rose on July 31, 2024, thousands of students, teachers, and citizens across Bangladesh prepared to join the March for Justice, a countrywide programme organised by Students Against Discrimination.
Amid continued mourning and mounting outrage, July 30 marked a powerful day of nationwide protests and symbolic resistance, as students, teachers, guardians, and citizens rallied across Bangladesh demanding justice for the lives lost during the quota reform movement.
On July 29, 2024, the Awami League-led 14-party alliance recommended that the government ban Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, citing their alleged involvement in anti-state activities.
By July 28, more than 2.13 lakh people—most of them unnamed—had been accused in nearly 200 cases filed with police stations across the capital in connection with the recent violence centring the quota reform movement.
City residents, still reeling from the trauma of deaths and destruction during the quota reform protests, felt a renewed wave of fear. Each day, particularly after sundown, convoys of vehicles carrying law enforcers reached neighbourhoods across Dhaka.
As Bangladesh reeled from days of unrest, the government intensified its crackdown. By 6:00pm on July 26, 2024, at least 738 more people had been arrested in the capital and several other districts in connection with the ongoing violence.
About four million people in south-central Bangladesh, ravaged by a cyclone and tidal wave in November 1970, were facing starvation because the war had halted emergency food distribution, reported the Washington Post.
A delegation headed by Labour MP John Stonehouse and top officials of War on Want, Christian Aid and Oxfam, called on Sir Alec Douglas Home, British foreign secretary, and told him that Britain should do something so that international relief work could be started in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed today appealed to neighbouring countries to grant immediate recognition to Bangladesh and to give unconditional arms aid and thus help a newborn country free itself from the clutches of a murderous army.
In a memorandum sent to President Richard Nixon today, the US President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger provided three policy options towards the East Pakistan crisis:
The 28’year’old vice consul of Pakistan in the US renounced his ties with the Pakistani government today, saying he would “not serve a government killing our own people”.
National Awami Party President Moulana Bhashani renewed his appeal to several world leaders to help the cause of Bangladesh. In a telegram,
US State Department sent a telegram to the US Embassy in Pakistan on April 24, 1971. The telegram provided a critical overview of the East Pakistan situation based on US Assistant Secretary Sisco’s meetings with Pakistan Ambassador Hilaly and Indian Ambassador Jha.
The Pakistan radio said tonight that Pakistan had decided to close down the Deputy High Commission office in Calcutta and had asked India to close her Deputy High Commission office in Dacca.
Maulana Bhashani, president of the National Awami Party (NAP-Bhashani), said in a press statement that the examples of Chiang-ki-shek in China and Czar in Russia and British oppression in undivided India or zulum of Jalem Yazid at Karbala pale into insignificance before the latest example of atrocity perpetrated by Yahya’s army.
Driven by the Pakistani troops’ genocide in Bangladesh, the influx of evacuees had been so great in Bongaon in 24-Parganas district that admission into one of the three camps had been stopped by the state government and a fourth camp was being opened.
