"When we shoot, one dies and another is injured. Only one person falls, but the rest refuse to leave. This is our biggest cause of panic and concern."
This was how a Dhaka Metropolitan Police officer reportedly described the situation during the July Uprising to then Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal.
The place he was referring to was Jatrabari.
By then, the bustling intersection in southern Dhaka had become a battleground.
At least 117 people were killed in Jatrabari during the three weeks leading up to Hasina's ouster, according to a Prothom Alo report, while a BBC Eye investigation said at least 52 were killed in police firing on August 5, 2024, alone.
During those weeks, the familiar blare of traffic had given way to the crack of relentless gunfire. Thick clouds of tear gas blanketed the Dhaka–Chattogram Highway, while burnt tyres, shattered bricks and overturned rickshaws littered the roads.
Whenever helicopters appeared overhead and gunfire intensified, the crowded streets emptied as protesters scrambled for cover.
Then, as the smoke began to clear, they returned.
First a handful. Then dozens. Then hundreds.
For days, security forces struggled to regain control of Jatrabari. Opposing them was neither an armed insurgency nor a trained militia, but an unlikely coalition of university students, madrasa pupils, garment workers, shopkeepers, rickshaw pullers and local residents who refused to yield despite mounting casualties.
Jatrabari has long been one of Dhaka's busiest gateways. Major roads linking the capital with Narayanganj, Sylhet and Chattogram converge here, while densely populated working-class neighbourhoods surround the intersection.
When protests spread across the country in July 2024, that geography became a strategic advantage.
Unlike many other protest sites, Jatrabari was encircled by residential neighbourhoods, Qawmi madrasas and busy markets. Protesters dispersed into nearby lanes, homes and mosques whenever security forces advanced, only to regroup minutes later.
Several protesters interviewed by Daily Waadaa said this ability to melt into the surrounding community gave them a crucial advantage.
"It wasn't just a protest demanding quota reform anymore," recalled Mohammad Muaz, then a student at Jameya Islamia Darul Ulum Madania Boro Madrasa who was shot in the abdomen on August 5.
"We knew that if Jatrabari remained blocked, everything entering Dhaka from this side would slow down. People understood the importance of this place without anyone needing to explain it."
The first demonstrations in Jatrabari began on 16 July, hours after six protesters, including Abu Sayeed, were killed elsewhere in the country.
Around 100 to 150 students gathered near Dania College demanding justice.
"As we began chanting slogans in front of Dania College, police officers from Jatrabari Police Station arrived. At first, it was mostly a verbal confrontation," recalled Alamin Atia, a student of Mirpur Bangla College who lived in the area.
Another protester, Aklima Akter Akhi, also remembered the gathering as relatively small.
The first day was neither particularly violent nor massive. Yet it marked the beginning of what would become one of the deadliest centres of resistance during the July Uprising.
Everything changed on 17 July.
As reports of police violence spread nationwide, students from schools, colleges and universities poured into Jatrabari. Teachers joined them, followed by transport workers, pedestrians and local residents.
"After Fajr prayer, people from the neighbourhood started coming onto the streets," Alamin said.
"I saw students, ordinary pedestrians and activists from BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami and Gono Odhikar Parishad. Many women also joined."
Mahmud Sarwar Roni, a local journalist who left his media organisation in protest over its coverage, described the demonstrations as unusually inclusive.
"From the very beginning, it became everyone's movement. Students, women, day labourers, teachers, professionals, political activists—people from every walk of life joined. The movement truly gathered momentum from 17 July."
Unlike conventional political movements, the resistance in Jatrabari had no single leader on the ground.
Students coordinated with local residents. Madrasa pupils organised themselves. Political activists from different parties participated without displaying party banners.
The decentralised structure made the movement remarkably resilient. When one group retreated under heavy fire, another emerged from a different street. When one barricade fell, another appeared nearby. Roads repeatedly changed hands as protesters regrouped and returned.
"It felt like everyone knew what needed to be done without waiting for instructions," one protester on condition of anonymity recalled.
Protesters identified two moments that fundamentally transformed the resistance.
The first was the killing of Imran, known locally as Imran Baburchi, on 17 July. His death, they said, sparked widespread anger across the neighbourhood.
The second came on 19 July.
Following Jummah prayers that Friday, large numbers of Qawmi madrasa students joined the movement.
Ridwan Hasan, a teacher at Jatrabari Boro Madrasa, was at the mosque when security forces opened fire.
"Suddenly, during the prayer, police fired tear gas and shotgun pellets from a distance. Several of our students were injured. After that, almost the entire madrasa came onto the streets, although many had already been participating."
Their arrival dramatically expanded both the size and endurance of the demonstrations.
Several protesters alleged that officers increasingly targeted demonstrators' heads and chests. Some also claimed helicopters fired from the air during later stages of the clashes.
"I saw helicopters hovering over Kazla while firing," Roni recalled. "It was around 20 July."
As the clashes intensified, protesters adapted quickly.
They sheltered beneath flyovers to avoid aerial fire, tracked police movements and returned whenever security forces temporarily withdrew. Makeshift shields fashioned from corrugated tin sheets and wooden planks offered limited protection against bullets.
"Whenever the police paused, we immediately regrouped," Alamin recalled. "We gathered in large numbers, chanted slogans and blocked the highway again."
Although the deadliest confrontations took place between 17 and 22 July and again from 3 to 5 August, residents say the resistance never truly ceased.
"People kept trying to return," Roni said.
"Even after 21 July, individuals and small groups repeatedly came out of their homes. They simply couldn't occupy the streets because security forces maintained an overwhelming presence."
Residents say Jatrabari did more than follow programmes announced by Students Against Discrimination (SAD).
Local religious scholars formed their own mobilisation platform, Shadharon Alem Shomaj, bringing together teachers and students from Jatrabari Boro Madrasa and neighbouring Qawmi institutions.
On 3 August, the platform organised Amadero Kichu Bolar Ache ("We Have Something to Say"), drawing large numbers of madrasa students into the movement.
The following day, organisers launched Gast Kormosuchi, a campaign inspired by Tabligh Jamaat's door-to-door outreach to encourage residents to join the protests.
On 5 August, they announced Khuruj Kormosuchi, urging people to leave their homes and take to the streets.
According to both Ridwan Hasan and Mohammad Muaz, these initiatives played a significant role in mobilising religious communities.
"People felt this was no longer simply a political movement," Muaz said. "For many, it had become a struggle for insaaf—for justice."
Even after Sheikh Hasina fled the country on the afternoon of 5 August, the battle for Jatrabari was not over.
According to protesters interviewed by Waadaa, security forces continued firing into the evening. Several people were killed even after news of Hasina's departure had spread across the country.
For Ridwan Hasan, 5 August remains the uprising's most haunting day.
"One of those who were killed was a student from our own madrasa”, he recalled quietly.
For those who lived through it, Jatrabari's story is about more than barricades, highways or clashes with security forces. It is the story of an ordinary neighbourhood that refused to yield. Students stood beside madrasa pupils. Shopkeepers marched alongside day labourers. Religious teachers organised independently, while residents sheltered the wounded in their homes.
The state's overwhelming firepower could disperse crowds.
It could not break the resolve of a community that, for twenty-one days, refused to surrender the streets.