The attack
On August 21, 2004, grenades were thrown during an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka. Twenty-four people were killed and many others were injured. The victims included political activists and bystanders caught in one of Bangladesh's most consequential episodes of political violence.
The existence of the attack and its human toll are not disputed. The question of who can be held criminally responsible changed dramatically across the later court proceedings.
The 2018 trial judgment
On October 10, 2018, a speedy-trial tribunal delivered judgments in the murder and explosives cases. Nineteen defendants received death sentences, 19 received life imprisonment and 11 received other prison terms.
Those trial convictions were subject to mandatory death-reference review and appeals before the High Court. A trial verdict is therefore not the same thing as a final judicial determination.
The High Court overturns the convictions
On December 1, 2024, the High Court overturned the lower-court judgments and acquitted all 49 accused. Defence reporting on the judgment said the High Court found serious problems in the way the trial had been conducted and in the evidentiary basis used to convict.
The state challenged those acquittals before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. The appeal was heard over multiple days in 2025.
The Supreme Court's final ruling
On September 4, 2025, the Appellate Division dismissed the state's appeals and upheld the High Court acquittals. The ruling extended the benefit of acquittal to the defendants covered by the case, bringing the long appellate litigation over those convictions to an end.
The legal consequence matters: people once convicted at trial cannot now be presented as convicted perpetrators in this archive. Their convictions were overturned, and the acquittals survived review by the country's highest court.
What remains unresolved
The Supreme Court ruling resolved the status of the defendants before it, but it did not produce a replacement set of convictions identifying who was criminally responsible for the attack. The event is therefore classified here as Unsolved / Judicially Unresolved.
This status does not erase the deaths, injuries or historical significance of the attack. It simply reflects the current legal record: the prosecution that once produced mass convictions ultimately ended with acquittals.
Timeline
August 21, 2004: grenades are thrown at a political rally in Dhaka, killing 24 people and injuring many more.
October 10, 2018: the trial court sentences 19 defendants to death, 19 to life imprisonment and 11 to other prison terms.
December 1, 2024: the High Court overturns the trial judgments and acquits all defendants.
June–August 2025: the Appellate Division hears the state's appeals against the acquittals.
September 4, 2025: the Supreme Court upholds the High Court acquittals, ending the prosecution against those defendants.
Current status
The attack remains judicially unresolved as to criminal responsibility. All defendants in the long-running prosecution were acquitted, and those acquittals were upheld by Bangladesh's Supreme Court on September 4, 2025. No later conviction replacing that result was located for this update.