Deadly 5 Aug: Unveiling the shocking truth behind the Ashulia carnage

The interior of Ashulia Police Station, located in the Baipail area on the outskirts of the capital, appeared unusually new. The noticeably empty spaces, minimal furniture, chairs still wrapped in plastic, and the low level of activity—despite it being a workday— may suggest that this unit had only recently moved into the building.

Another striking observation was the significantly reduced workforce. Only a few lower-ranking officers were present, their faces betraying a mix of nervousness and unease that hung palpably in the air. 

When The Business Standard (TBS) visited the station on Monday, the officers were all tight-lipped, unwilling to speak in the absence of their senior officers. Their fear was unmistakable when asked what had occurred there on August 5.

This fear was also evident among the residents and shopkeepers in the congested area where the station is located. The question of what happened on the day the Hasina government collapsed seemed to unsettle everyone.

TBS visited the area following a lead from a video showing police loading the bodies of gunshot victims onto a rickshaw van, an event captured shortly after Hasina's departure and the geolocation data suggest it was down an alley just before the police station building.

These correspondents went to investigate the identities of the dead and the connection between the police station and these individuals. There were also allegations that some bodies had been burned near or on the station premises during the mayhem.   

Our Savar correspondent estimates over 40 were killed on the day alone in Savar-Ashulia, while residents claim it to be far higher. 

TBS spoke at length with 18 people, including local residents, students, policemen and local businessmen, to get the full picture of what transpired on the turbulent day.   

Initially hesitant, some locals began to open up during conversations with the correspondents, gradually revealing horrific details, which added a chilling layer to the already tense atmosphere in the area.

One of them gave the account of the nerve-wracking hours he went through just to rescue Lebu Miah, a local butcher.

"The morning was something like calm before the storm on 5 August. There was no internet connection, some people were on their way to join the students-announced Long March to Dhaka from our locality—they were on Baipail-Ashulia road," Md Humayun Kabir, 40, landlord and a close friend of Lebu.

Lebu's wife, still reeling from the shock, sat in silence while Humayun narrated the events. She is trying to get back to her life—without the husband life isn't so easy. 

"At around 12:30pm I got a call from Lebu Miah. He had just got shot in front of a garment factory just adjacent to the Ashulia Police Station. As he was saying he had been shot in the legs and in the lower portion of the body, I suggested he wait for a while until the situation calmed down and asked him to control the bleeding," said Humayun. 

The alleys and adjacent roads of Ashulia police station were like war zones, most of the people from the locality were inside their homes—even though that wasn't safe. Gunshots fired by the police were rumbling the locality, people were trembling as gunshots or live bullets could invade anyone's window. 

"Rather I asked Lebu to wait for a while," said Humayun. 

"We tried to reach him several times from 12:30 to 4:30pm but we couldn't reach the spot until the police left the place around 5pm only to find him dead." 

While Humayun was giving this description at his house, some neighbours gathered. They supported the claims of indiscriminate shooting. 

"We got his dead body released around 6:45pm after obtaining a death certificate from Gonoshasthaya Medical College. The next day, the namaz-e-janaza was held for Lebu Miah and six charred bodies on the premises of a local mosque. Hundreds others joined the ritual."  

The bodies were found burned in a police pick-up van after the 5 August mayhem, according to locals.  Of the bodies, four were handed over to the families and two unidentified ones were buried in a local graveyard.  

But how did these bodies get burned? 

To get the answer, TBS tried to talk to Ashulia police station personnel and the Dhaka DB officials. One from inside the police station confirmed that in a state of panic, the policemen themselves loaded the dead bodies into the police van from a pedal van. 

They claimed that agitated mobs brought the bodies to the station by the pedal van but they said they have no idea who burnt the bodies.   

TBS found one witness who works at a shop and saw the horrific scene from a nearby building balcony and recorded a video. 

"The police van was torched at 2:40-2:50pm and I witnessed it. Being panicked and all the dead bodies had identities, cards they torched the van from the rear end and the police vehicle was parked towards the exit points of the station. A policeman known as Mamun soaked a newspaper in patrol from another police car and torched the police van loaded with the bodies. Another policeman also hurled a wooden-bench from a nearby shop into the van to make the fire bigger," the youth was hurriedly narrating the scene and left, saying, "I am being followed by police sources".   

TBS also encountered a good number of locals who didn't want to speak on the day in question in fear of police reprisal as "most of the policemen allegedly involved in the carnage are still posted at the same police station".   

TBS also obtained a video that purportedly portrayed the beginning of the torching the van; some policemen were seen within 20 feet of the scene and a policeman was seen coming back from the van when the fire was just flaring up inside the van.

Locals confirmed the scene was from the place. The metadata also shows it was shot on 5 Aug.     

No mass people or civilians were seen within the periphery of the police team at that time. And the cops were apparently calm and there was tension of being attacked on that video. 

Gunshots even after 'surrender announcement' 

A 10th grader who joined the movement in mid-July and whose father was also injured by police rubber bullets told TBS how horrific the day was. Though he took to the streets till 4 August, the next day he was not allowed to go out of the home as the situation was tense from the morning.  

"But we could closely observe what happened on that day in front of the police station as my house is adjacent to the thana building. People were getting killed by police live bullets even after there was news in the air that the army chief would address the nation and Sheikh Hasina had fled the country. Within the periphery of the police station there was a makeshift chowki of sand bags—50 feet from the main gate of the station—people got killed by police firing just a few feet next to the sandbags," he said. 

"You may find bullet marks on the sidewalls and even on the floors of the nearby shops," the boy added. 

These correspondents also saw such marks on the sidewalls of the alleys, buildings and shops. 

Shockingly enough, firing continued even after it was announced from a local mosque that police are with the people and they have surrendered. A number of people got shot after stepping out of their homes on hearing the announcement.  

While no official was willing to go on record, police sources said around 2:30pm appeals to people not to attack the police station were made from the local mosques. A shop owner named Khaled Hossain, whose shop is next to Baipail mosque, corroborated the claim, as he had heard one such announcement. 

"Police want to surrender and you've (people) won the battle. Please don't attack us," these were the words from the mosque mikes. 

"But even after that we also heard gunshots and I was at my home close to the police station," he added. 

TBS obtained a series of videos showing police firing from in front of the police station. In one video and several photos, a youth can be seen lying prone with fresh bullet wounds next to sandbags, indicating he had been shot just minutes before. 

Another person is slumped against a building wall, his feet parallel to the ground, apparently still alive despite his injuries. 

Policemen, equipped with bulletproof vests and helmets and brandishing firearms, are visible in the footage, positioned next to these wounded individuals. 

According to a local youth who provided the videos to TBS, "The policemen had panicked and continued firing, as evident from the photos and videos."

Could it all have been avoided? 

At least 10 people, including women, from the locality of West Baipail area told TBS that while the students and mass people were holding a victory rally on the main roads the then local lawmaker and Awami League leader Saiful Islam from the morning tried to quell the protesters with gunshots and local weapons.

A 55-year-old Rowshon Ali categorically put all the blame on Saiful Islam for the massacre on 5 August. 

"This area would not have become a war zone If the local lawmaker Saiful Chairman (he was formerly a union parishad chairman) and his men didn't shoot people on August 4 and 5 even after the resignation news of Hasina. They and the police shot people on 5 August, and because of this an angry mob vandalized and torched a nearby market owned by Saiful MP." 

Later in search of the MP, people also stormed his house and he wasn't found. "And there was news that he was hiding inside the police station. This was why the police station was attacked, torched and vandalised," said Rowshon Ali. 

What the lawmaker actually did

It is said that the then lawmaker Saiful Islam of Dhaka-19 constituency and his gang played an equal role alongside the police in inciting the protesters to the point of attacking and setting fire to the Ashulia Police Station on 5 August.

Several police officials, local residents, protesters, and eyewitnesses reported that Saiful led the armed attacks carried out by activists of the local Awami League and its affiliated organisations on protesters in Ashulia on 4 and 5 August.

On 5 August, in attacks led by Saiful, who was also general secretary of Ashulia Thana Awami League, many people were shot, with their bodies lying at various points on the Nabinagar-Chandra and Baipail-Abdullahpur roads, according to multiple eyewitnesses.

Anarul Islam Jibon, a resident of Basundhara area of Baipail who was an active participant in the movement, shared his experience with The Business Standard, recalling the day. 

Saiful along with hundreds of armed cadre forces, launched an attack on the protesters in Baipail, starting from the Palli Bidyut area after 10am. 

"I was there after 1pm and witnessed indiscriminate firing directed at the protesters. People were collapsing on the street one after another, minute by minute," said Anarul.

"I saw so many people getting shot that I didn't even notice when my brother was shot, even though I was beside him. One by one, people were getting shot and falling on the street, while others were trying to carry them to the hospital. Shots were even fired from the rooftops of nearby buildings. Later, I got the news that my brother had died."

Anarul has filed a court case regarding the murder of his brother Jahidul Islam Sagar, a salon worker, naming former PM Sheikh Hasina as the main accused.

Not just Anarul, but several local people and eyewitnesses from the August 5th incident too described the horrific brutality of Saiful and his gang. Many believe that the aggressive role of Saiful Islam and his followers on 4 August and especially after 10am on 5 August, was so terrifying that the enraged crowd lost all restraint.

This led to the horrific attacks, looting, and murders at Ashulia Police Station, including the bodies of two policemen being hung from the overbridge near the station and the burning of another body, that too of a cop, said locals and police sources.  

Several police officers on duty at Ashulia Police Station on 5 August also acknowledged Saiful's murderous madness.

Until the announcement of the government's fall, at least until 3pm, they conducted a massacre in front of the Baipail and Ashulia police station on the Nabinagar-Chandra highway and its surrounding points. Protesters accused the police of cooperating with Saiful and his men in these atrocities.

When a rumour spread that the police had given shelter to Saiful at the station in the last moments, the crowd became even more enraged, leading to the attack on the Ashulia Police Station.

TBS could not find Saiful or anyone close to him available for comment.

Additional SP being quizzed  

Law enforcement sources said a number of DB personnel were sent to the police station that day. 

"Additional SP Mobasshira Jahan and Additional SP Abdullahil Kafi asked us to go there (Ashulia) to work with Ashulia Police Station. Even after the order on 4 August, some of us didn't want to go there as the situation was volatile but we had no other choice," said a senior DB official, on condition of anonymity.   

The official also claimed that the situation wouldn't have escalated so severely if the ruling party members hadn't shot at people on 4 and 5 August.

"We (DB men) were stationed with Ashulia police and some of us were hiding inside the police station. But staying inside the station wasn't a good choice as the angry mob could attack us anytime and news spread that MP Saiful Islam was also hiding in the police station. We narrowly escaped death that day. I and most of the policemen also talked to the family members as if it was our last time alive and we bid them farewell. Later, the army came and we fired in the sky and then escaped to take shelter inside the cantonment. But the moments before our departure from the scene were not smooth. The army was called in with its APCs but angry mobs even rode on them," the DB official said. 

Asked who had torched the police van as well as the dead bodies, the DB official couldn't provide a clear response as he claimed he was inside the police station at the time. 

But according to several police sources, people weren't able to enter the periphery at the time of the torching of the police vehicle as policemen were still firing then and torching a police vehicle by a common man was nearly impossible as chances were high of being killed by gunshots. 

The Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) detained Kafi for questioning at around 10pm on 2 September) after being tipped off that he was trying to flee the country.

DB Joint Commissioner Rabiul Islam said police were trying to find his involvement with the killing and burning of people in Ashulia on 5 August.

A source at the DB, however, told TBS that a case is being prepared against Abdullahil Kafi.  "He has not yet been dismissed from his job, which is causing some delay."  

According to DB sources, Kafi had ordered the policemen on the ground to use excessive power to quell the student protests on 5 August, the day that violence erupted across the country upon the ouster of the Awami League government. 

According to the sources, Kafi was very close to the son of former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan. "We even went abroad on an official tour with the then home minister and had hundreds of photos on his social media with the minister and his son," one of the sources added. 

Contacted, Mobasshira Jahan said the DB team on that day was on duty under the supervision of the OC-in-charge of Ashulia Police Station. "Neither Kafi nor I were present on the scene. We can only deploy force but can't take responsibility for what happened on the ground," she said when asked about the incidents centring on the police station on 5 August. 

The police station, meanwhile, is yet to get fully functional, struggling to rise from the ashes. It remains the centre of fear among locals. Many say they don't know how long it will take them to overcome the trauma of the deadly day while reports of more chilling incidents keep emerging in the public domain.

So far, we can say the violence left at least 57 people dead in Savar-Ashulia. However, the actual number may be higher.