32 July 2024: Still bleeding, still July

The morning came in grey and low, a fog that settled over the city before turning to drizzle. As the day went on, the downpour became relentless, soaking anyone caught out in the open. Yet, at the foot of Aparajeyo Bangla, the protesting teachers had already assembled. They stood drenched and unmoving, as though the weather was entirely beside the point. 

The calendars declared it was 1 August. Yet to the students, it was 32 July.

They even had a name for the day: Remembering Our Heroes. Soon, one more name joined the list as Selim Talukder, a 31-year-old factory worker from Narayanganj, died at a Dhanmondi hospital of wounds he had carried since 18 July. He had 56 shotgun pellets in his chest and 18 in his head. His death brought the confirmed count since 16 July to at least 201.

They declared that the month would not end until their demands were met and the martyrs received justice. On grounds across the country, teachers and students convened to remember the fallen and to refuse, out loud, the long effort to make them forget. And in the afternoon, the government would try to save its skin by making Jamaat-e-Islami the scapegoat and blaming all the violence upon them. It didn't work.

Teachers in the rain

At Aparajeyo Bangla, teachers of Dhaka University wanted the police repression to end, halls and dormitories reopened, and every armed officer withdrawn from the grounds. They said the vice-chancellor had no authority to empty the halls and shut the university down.

Earlier that morning, teachers and students from the economics and public administration departments had gathered on the same spot to condemn the assault on one of their own, Shehrin Amin Bhuiyan of the Department of Public Administration. 

Later, they marched from the Raju Memorial through the university roads and ended at the Shaheed Minar.

'Remembering Our Heroes'

The theme for the day had been decided the evening before, and it spread. At Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, at Jahangirnagar, at Shahjalal in Sylhet, at Rajshahi, Barishal and the Islamic University in Kushtia, teachers formed human chains and led silent marches, and in the capital, the university teachers' network rallied at the Raju Memorial for the release of the arrested and the reopening of institutions. 

At Rajshahi, the teachers stepped between the police and their students to stop the arrests; at Barishal, the police took 12 students anyway.

Online, the same grief moved under two hashtags: #JulyMassacre and #RememberingOurHeroes. The university's pro-government blue panel called its own press conference to say the students' demands had already been met, and urged them to go home.

And at around half past one, the six coordinators walked out of the Detective Branch office. Three had been detained for six days, two for five, one for four; they had spent two of those days on hunger strike, their families said, and emerged physically broken. 

Protest leader Sarjis Alam wrote a single line that carried the day, "You can hold six people for six days. How will you hold back an entire generation?"

That morning, artists had set out for a human chain in front of the National Parliament; the police stopped them at Khamarbari, so they stood in the downpour at Farmgate instead, banners running with water, and gave their slogans to the traffic.

A ban, and a name to blame

The government found the usual suspect.

Under the Anti-Terrorism Act, by executive order, the home ministry banned Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, along with their affiliated bodies, declaring that it held sufficient evidence of their hand in the recent killings and sabotage.

Few outside the government read the timing as being about evidence. On Minto Road, a gathering of eminent citizens stood before the DB office and gave the state 24 hours to release everyone still in custody. They said the six coordinators were free, but teachers, students and ordinary people were not.

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the secretary general of the BNP, warned that repression would only harden the resistance. And Sheikh Hasina, who days earlier had asked aloud what her crime was, now told reporters that the UN and any interested country were welcome to investigate — an inquiry, it seemed, into everyone but the government that had ordered the firing.

Still July

By evening, coordinator Abdul Kader announced the next day's programme. On Friday, after the Jummah prayers, there would be prayers for the dead and visits to their graves, prayers in the temples and churches too, and then a mass procession of students and citizens together for the nine demands. 

He asked workers, teachers, professionals, journalists, rights defenders, intellectuals and the clergy to come.

On social media, the month of August was non-existent. To the netizens, the first of the month was 32 July; the second would be 33; and the month would go on being July until the battle that began was over.