For Nurul Islam Babul, the journey from lying unconscious in a Dhaka hospital to becoming a mayoral candidate is nothing short of a miracle.
Babul, deputy chief (Nayeb-e-Ameer) of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Sylhet city unit, has been named the party’s candidate for Sylhet City Corporation in the next local government election.
On October 28, 2006, he was brutally attacked with bamboo sticks and boat oars — locally known as logi-boitha — by leaders and activists of the Sylhet city unit of the Awami League and its affiliated organisations at Court Point in Sylhet.
The attack fractured his skull, leaving him critically injured and unconscious for 13 days. He was rescued and flown to Dhaka by air ambulance, where he underwent prolonged treatment at Apollo Hospitals.
Like in Sylhet, clashes erupted in other parts of the country, including Dhaka’s Paltan and Baitul Mukarram areas, between Awami League activists and supporters of BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir.
At least 13 people were killed nationwide that day alone, including at least five in Dhaka, according to media reports. Violence on October 27 and 29 added to the toll, with reports indicating that at least 23 people died over the three days.
At the time, Babul was president of Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir’s Sylhet city unit. His recovery eventually enabled him to return to public life, but the effects of the attack remain visible. Even today, he occasionally slurs his words while speaking.
“I still clearly recall everything. The trauma won’t ever leave me, even in the future,” he said.
Babul’s experience is among the accounts of brutality that continue to haunt political activists of the October 28 violence, when clashes between Awami League activists and supporters of the then-ruling four-party alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) turned deadly in several parts of the country.
The day marked the end of the BNP-led alliance government’s tenure, amid escalating political tensions over the formation of a caretaker government ahead of the next parliamentary election.
The outgoing government wanted former chief justice KM Hasan to lead the caretaker administration. The Awami League objected, arguing that Hasan’s previous association with the BNP made him unsuitable to oversee a credible election.
Preparations for the confrontation had begun well before October 28. At a rally at Paltan Maidan in Dhaka on September 18, 2006, Awami League president Sheikh Hasina urged party leaders and activists to come to the capital from villages and districts carrying bamboo poles and boat oars if KM Hasan took charge as chief adviser to the caretaker government.
Hasan, however, later declined to assume the role.
Ahead of the October 28 showdown, the Awami League announced a rally at Paltan Maidan, the BNP at its Naya Paltan headquarters, and Jamaat-e-Islami at the north gate of Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in Dhaka.
The violence that unfolded on the streets of the capital that day sparked widespread shock and outrage.
In one widely reported incident, a man collapsed after being struck by a brick. Awami League activists dragged him away and beat him with sticks as a crowd gathered around him and chanted slogans, dancing on his dead body.
Images of people openly brandishing firearms and firing shots, alongside reports of people being beaten to death in public, further intensified the outrage.
The episode became known as the logi-boitha violence, after the sticks and oars used in the attacks. Most of the victims were supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir.
‘Never witnessed anything so violent’
Md Saifullah, then an activist of Islami Chhatra Shibir, was among those injured in the clashes in Dhaka’s Paltan area.
Party leaders had instructed Saifullah and other activists to attend the rally marking the end of the government’s tenure, but he had little reason to expect such violence.
“They outnumbered us. We were barehanded, and they were armed with lethal weapons, sticks and oars,” he said.
“I have taken part in rallies throughout my life, but I had never witnessed anything so violent, either before or since.”
He lost two of his companions, Golam Kibria Shipon and Saifullah Mohammad Masum, both activists of the Shibir unit in Sabujbagh, which Saifullah headed.
Shipon’s body was seized by Awami League activists around 40 to 50 feet away from Saifullah, he recalled.
“They were telling us to bring his body if we had the courage. The way they celebrated over his dead body was unbearable.”
For survivors such as Babul, October 28 remains more than a chapter in Bangladesh’s political history. The physical injuries and psychological scars have endured for two decades, underscoring the lasting human cost of political violence.
“From that day, the trajectory of Bangladesh’s politics changed. It was the beginning of the violent politics that continued until the July Uprising,” Saifullah said.