20 July 2024: Killings in the dark and light

"How many bullets does it take to kill a boy, sir?"

Sub-Inspector Moynal Hossain of Rajarbagh Police Lines reportedly asked a superior officer after identifying the body of his 17-year-old son, Imam Hossain Taeem, at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Earlier that evening, Moynal had searched the hospital's wards and lists of injured patients with a photograph of his son before being directed to the morgue by a journalist. 

According to family members and witnesses, Taeem had left home to join the protest despite his father's objections. During a pause in the curfew, he and several friends took shelter in a shop while being pursued by police. Witnesses said officers opened the shop's shutter, beat the group, and fired as they attempted to flee. Taeem sustained multiple shotgun pellet wounds and died. 

At a quarter to six, in Painadi in Narayanganj's Siddhirganj, 20-year-old Sumaiya Akhtar stepped onto the sixth-floor balcony beside her mother, who had gone out to watch a RAB helicopter circling overhead. Sumaiya had just put her baby to sleep. Moments later she began to slump. Her mother, Asma Begum, thought she had taken fright but when she caught her, blood was pouring from her head. A bullet from the helicopter had found her. She died where she stood.

Sumaiya is survived by her infant daughter, Soaiba, who is now being cared for by her grandmother. 

A massacre behind a blackout

This was 20 July, the first full day of the curfew declared at midnight, and the third day of an internet blackout that had severely disrupted communications across Bangladesh and limited access to information both domestically and internationally. Army units were deployed from dawn to enforce the curfew. Protests, however, continued in several parts of the country, alongside further reports of fatalities.

Despite the curfew, thousands of people took to the streets. 

In Jatrabari, protesters blocked the Dhaka–Chattogram Highway with trucks and vans. Police responded with live ammunition, tear gas and sound grenades, while helicopters flew overhead and reportedly deployed tear gas canisters. 

In Mohammadpur, demonstrators marching toward the police station were met with gunfire. In Savar, five people were reported killed, including 55-year-old poultry trader Kurban Ali, who was reportedly shot in the throat inside his shop, and 13-year-old sixth-grade student Saad Mohammad Khan, who, according to witnesses, had been observing the events.

In Narayanganj, three young men were declared dead after being taken to the same hospital.

As the internet blackout restricted communication within Bangladesh, members of the Bangladeshi diaspora became an important source of information and advocacy abroad. Unable to communicate easily with their families and facing limited access to news from inside the country, Bangladeshis in Germany, Australia, the United States, the Middle East and elsewhere organised demonstrations, shared information on social media, signed petitions, and sought to draw international attention to developments in Bangladesh.

At least 65 people were confirmed dead across the country on the first full day of the curfew, according to available reports, although the final death toll remains uncertain. During the same period, the Awami League government detained opposition leaders, sought remand orders for others, and announced public holidays for the following two days.

The newsroom under the internet blackout

That was the first morning I had to travel to the office under the curfew. After collecting a movement pass, I made my way through streets that were largely empty except for security personnel enforcing the restrictions.

Inside, the newsroom was operating under conditions that resembled an earlier era of journalism. Without internet access, many digital workflows were unavailable. 

Photographers delivered their images on pen drives and memory cards rather than through online transfers. Reporters wrote in Word documents, and copy was passed between colleagues manually. 

Page proofs were printed, edited on paper, and marked by hand. The newspaper was produced under severe communication constraints while information about the violence remained difficult for much of the country to access because of the ongoing blackout. Travelling home that night through the curfew was the most unsettling journey I had experienced. 

The country's voice abroad

As the internet blackout restricted communication within Bangladesh, members of the Bangladeshi diaspora became an important source of information and advocacy abroad. Unable to communicate easily with their families and facing limited access to news from inside the country, Bangladeshis in Germany, Australia, the United States, the Middle East and elsewhere organised demonstrations, shared information on social media, signed petitions, and sought to draw international attention to developments in Bangladesh.

During this period, Bangladesh's embassies issued warnings that participation in protests abroad could affect consular services, including passport-related matters. In the United Arab Emirates, 57 Bangladeshi migrant workers were sentenced after participating in demonstrations in Abu Dhabi. Many expatriate Bangladeshis also suspended or reduced remittance transfers, contributing to what later became a broader remittance boycott.

Internet access was gradually restored in the days that followed, but the uprising continued to gather momentum. For the families of those who had been killed, however, the restoration of communications did not alter their losses. Sumaiya Akhtar's infant daughter, Soaiba, remained in the care of her grandmother, while Sub-Inspector Moynal Hossain continued to live with the loss of his son. These events formed part of the broader human cost of the movement that ultimately led to the removal of the Awami League government.