DHAKA: Amid tightened nationwide security, Bangladesh on Wednesday inaugurated a memorial museum to commemorate the victims of violence during the anti-government protests in 2024 that toppled Sheikh Hasina's government.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman inaugurated the 'July Mass Uprising Memorial Museum' at Ganabhaban, prime minister's official residence during Hasina's regime, coinciding with the day she fled to India on August 5, 2024.
“The killers in the anti-fascist movement will be tried in a transparent, impartial and credible manner following the due process of law,” Rahman said in a brief address while unveiling the museum’s plaque.
“Justice for every crime is essential to ensure rule of law” Rahman said as the Interim government chief Muhammad Yunus stood beside him.
The prime minister announced that government institutions would be named after slain activists of the uprising and those who were killed during the rule of Hasina’s Awami League since 2009.
According to a February 2025 UN rights office report, up to 1,400 people were killed between July 15 and August 15 last year, the period dubbed as the ‘July Uprising,’ as Hasina’s government ordered a security crackdown on protesters.
Three days after Hasina fled to India following the widespread protests against her government over a controversial quota system in jobs, Yunus took over as the chief adviser of the Interim government.
A special tribunal set up by Yunus' government gave Hasina a death sentence in November 2025 on charges of “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.” His interim regime, under an executive order, also banned Hasina's Awami League that has been in power for many terms since 1971. The decision was endorsed by Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government after the February 12 elections.
Bangladesh is commemorating August 5 as the 'July Mass Uprising Day' with the government, political parties and socio-cultural organisations organising various programmes to honour the sacrifices of those, including students, who took to the streets against what they described as Hasina's “misrule and autocracy,” according to the state-run news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS).
In a related development, Bangladesh has tightened a nationwide security vigil fearing violence as Hasina is set to make a virtual public address in New Delhi.
The authorities had, earlier this week, ordered a nationwide security alert fearing outbreak of violence coinciding with the anniversary, particularly directing police to take extra care for their own personnel and their vehicles.
However, there were no report of any violence till afternoon on Wednesday, officials said.
Paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) was deployed to enforce the vigil in southwestern Gopalganj, Hasina’s ancestral home district, and birthplace of her father and Bangladesh’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Following widespread protests against her government over a controversial quota system in jobs, Hasina fled to India on August 5, 2024, an event that reshaped the country's political landscape. Three days later, Muhammad Yunus took over as the chief adviser of the Interim government.
On November 17, 2025, the International Crime Tribunal, Bangladesh (ICT-BD) sentenced to death Hasina and home minister of her cabinet Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal after trial in absentia conserving their superior responsibility in committing crimes by their attempt to tame the protestors.
According to media reports and analysts, there has been a sense of unease in Bangladesh since Hasina announced last month to return home by December.
The unease intensified as her party announcement that she would appear virtually to meet the international press at New Delhi-based Foreign Correspondents' Club of South Asia on Wednesday.
Ahead of her public address, Sajeeb Wazed, her US-based son and ICT affairs adviser of the ousted Awami government, in a social media post said, “The August 5 reminds us how an organised state, social system is grabbed by extremists under a unique design of some power greedy anti-Bangladesh quarters.”
Wazed, who also is scheduled to deliver a key note paper at Hasina’s Wednesday event, said the day severely affected Bangladesh’s democratic continuity causing a protracted political unrest and a long-term crisis for different sectors of the state.
Bangladesh prime minister’s information adviser Zahed Ur Rahman earlier warned media outlets that publish or broadcast Hasina's speech would face strict legal actions, saying it would directly violate an active ban by the ICT-BD, which awarded her the death penalty.
But ICT-BD chief prosecutor Aminul Islam said there was no blanket legal ban on broadcasting or publishing Hasina’s statements and said the tribunal restricted the Bangladesh media only from airing remarks that contain “hate speech” or undermined the special court’s dignity and image.