Three weeks before the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh, I found myself amid the swelling crowds of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) movement, documenting their fervent push for change. The final day of this wave of protests offered a particularly striking experience — marching with a procession from Mirpur to Ganabhaban, the Bangladesh prime minister’s official residence.

It was Monday, August 5, when my chief reporter dispatched me to Mirpur, a bustling suburb of Dhaka. I arrived at Mirpur 10 in the early hours, riding in a CNG auto-rickshaw provided by the office. My assignment was relentless — covering Mirpur today, Uttara tomorrow. Each day brought a new hotspot, and this morning was no exception.

As I approached Mirpur 10, the scene was tense. Army personnel had cordoned off the area, laying down barbed wire barriers across all four roads leading into the circle, effectively sealing it off. It appeared that today, like many days before, the streets would be empty, silenced by the show of military force. But that assumption, like those on previous days, soon proved to be a miscalculation.

The air was thick with anticipation, as if the city itself was holding its breath. Then, slowly but surely, people began to emerge. From behind the barbed wire, a wave of demonstrators started to gather, their voices rising in a chorus of defiance. The road leading towards Mirpur 2 was alive with movement, and I knew I had to get closer.

Ganabhaban

Navigating through the narrow Falpatti area, I took the road toward Kazipara. A source tipped me off that a crowd was forming on the road toward Mirpur 13. I quickly made my way to the Mirpur Ideal School and College, and there, I found them — about five hundred strong, their voices ringing out in fiery slogans.

The tension escalated quickly. Soldiers moved in, firing blanks to disperse the crowd. The skies opened up, and rain began to pour, momentarily scattering the demonstrators. But they were undeterred. As the rain subsided, they returned, their resolve seemingly strengthened by the brief pause. The protest continued, undiminished, a testament to the unyielding spirit of the movement.

From the direction of Mirpur Original 10, word spread quickly — more protestors were arriving by the minute. I hopped into a battery-powered rickshaw, flanked by Kamran from The Business Standard and Taufiq from Kaler Kantha. As we approached, the scene was intense — army personnel held the road’s center, surrounded on three sides by a throng of protesters, their voices echoing with chants.

Over a loudspeaker, an army officer tried to calm the crowd, announcing that the army chief would be addressing them soon. “Please wait until then,” he urged. But the protesters, their patience worn thin, were in no mood to wait. The army chief’s speech was scheduled for 2 p.m., but by 1:35, the tension reached its peak.

In a sudden and unified movement, the crowd pushed forward, tearing down the barbed wire barriers that separated them from the main road. The soldiers stood by, offering no resistance. What followed was a remarkable display of unexpected camaraderie. Protesters began thanking the troops, saluting them, and in some cases, even embracing them. I watched as some demonstrators hugged the soldiers and snapped photos, capturing a moment of surreal unity amid the charged atmosphere.

The procession, initially barred from stopping at Mirpur No. 10, pressed on relentlessly, winding its way through Kazipara and Shewrapara, heading straight for Shahbagh. I moved with the crowd, but as we reached Agargaon, Taltala, I felt a strong pull, as if I were being swept backward in time. The procession flowed down one side of the road, while I crossed to the opposite side, catching a battery rickshaw to get ahead of the march. I disembarked at Bijay Sharani, at the very front of the procession.

The main wave of the protesters was streaming toward Shahbagh, but a faction broke away, determined to head toward Ganabhaban, the prime minister’s official residence, behind the parliament. Police and army personnel scrambled to block their path, but their efforts were in vain. The soldiers who had earlier fired blanks to disperse the crowd now stood motionless, as if the tide of the day had turned irrevocably.

As the crowd neared the rear of the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban, a helicopter lifted off from there. The time was 2:25 p.m. The students erupted in chants of “vua (disgrace), vua (disgrace)” surging toward Ganabhaban with renewed vigour.

At that moment, I spotted a man on a motorcycle. Desperate to get ahead, I stood in his path, arms outstretched and I quickly introduced myself as a journalist, requesting a ride. He agreed, and I was soon back on the move, arriving in front of the prime minister’s house gate.

There, a remarkable scene unfolded. Students had scaled two armoured personnel carriers of the presidential guard regiment, waving the national flag triumphantly. Within moments, a group of 40 to 50 protesters clambered over the gate adjacent to the parliament building. The rest, emboldened by their success, pushed forward, urging the soldiers to open the gate. They did, and in that instant, I found myself among the first hundred to enter Ganabhaban.

Inside Ganabhaban Palace, chaos reigned as the first wave of protesters unleashed their fury. Glass shattered, furniture was smashed, and I documented it all, snapping photos and capturing video. Amid the frenzy, I noticed three or four young men prostrating on the grass in front of the Palace, one of them shouting a prayer in the ground:

“God, grant martyrdom to those who died in this movement!”

As I ventured deeper inside, the surreal scene continued to unfold. In the hallway, tables were set with food — meat, vegetables, chicken — left untouched from what was likely a recent meal. Some of the protesters began to eat, while one young man took sweets from the fridge and distributed them among the group. He even offered me one.

In the room where the prime minister used to hold briefings, people were sitting cross-legged in her chair, snapping pictures. Others rifled through books, and some were looting items — saris, jewellery, electrical goods. One man triumphantly held up a chicken and declared:

“There will be a party tonight to celebrate the fall of dictator Hasina!”

I watched as a few young men entered the Prime Minister’s bedroom on the first floor, lying on her bed and taking selfies.

Despite the efforts of PGR army officers to prevent the destruction and looting, their warnings went unheeded. The scene was eerily reminiscent of the events in Sri Lanka, which I had seen on social media, but now it was unfolding in my own country before my eyes. In the midst of it all, I received a call from AFP journalist Mohammad Ali Mazed. Dhaka bureau chief Shafiqul Alam asked him if my quotes could be used in their report. Although we were among the first hundred to enter, the crowd had swelled to over 1,500, with more arriving every moment.

An hour later, as I made my way out, the number of people at Ganabhaban had grown into the hundreds of thousands. Later, I learned that AFP had been the first to break the news. Before leaving, I attempted to go up to the first floor, but an Army Officer named Zahid stopped me, forbidding access to the bedroom. He was visibly shocked when I introduced myself as a journalist. “You’re a journalist and you’re in here too?” he asked, incredulous. “Just look at the mayhem going on.” As if to underscore the absurdity of the situation, a young man casually walked up to the officer, holding a bottle of body spray, and said, “I took it, sir.”

As I stepped out onto the front of Ganabhaban Palace, I was greeted by an unexpected sight. To my left, under a leafy tree, sat Abhi Khasru, a leader of the SAD movement from Shariatpur, outer region from Dhaka. The elderly man was calmly smoking a cigarette alongside his friend, Anik Khan, while a young man nearby casually held a chicken. It was a surreal contrast to the chaos unfolding around us.

Abhi, noticing me, brought over some lozenges and a Coke from inside the Palace. Moments earlier, I had seen him inside, occupying the very seat where the prime minister once held discussions. Anik, his friend, was also inside, snapping pictures in the same room. It was a bizarre scene — some were prostrating in prayer, others puffing on cigarettes, all amidst the widespread destruction.

Inside Ganabhaban, the vandalism was still in full swing. No one had entered the building with weapons or tools, but once inside, most of the young men were seizing chairs and smashing glass with them. At least 80 percent of the crowd appeared to be students, judging by their dress and behaviour. Among them were a few middle-aged individuals who, from their conversations, seemed to be affiliated with the opposition alliance.

Throughout the Palace, chants echoed repeatedly:

“Palaiche re palaiche, Hasina palaiche (She’s fled, she’s fled, Hasina has fled)”.

A lone voice tried to rally the crowd with the slogan “Naraye Takbeer, Allahu Akbar” but it fell flat, flopped with silence. Despite the repetition, the same slogans were chanted over and over, occasionally punctuated by bouts of profanity.

The juxtaposition of calm and chaos, of prayer and destruction, painted a disturbing picture of a moment in history that seemed to be spiralling out of control.

During the movement, the Ganabhaban, the symbol of governmental authority, was strictly off-limits — its boundaries firmly guarded, with no one allowed entry. The roads around this area were perpetually clogged with traffic, yet access was tightly controlled, with even nearby routes closed to the public.

But once inside, the protesters unleashed a wave of destruction that suggested they viewed the Ganabhaban as something entirely separate from the country it represented. The disciplined solidarity they had shown in the anti-discrimination movement over the past few days seemed to dissolve as soon as they crossed the threshold of the building. The absence of any protective instinct toward this national landmark was glaringly evident, and the reason was clear to everyone present.

The anger fueling the destruction stemmed from a deep and personal pain — many of these young people had lost friends like Abu Saeed and Mir Mugdha, whose lives were cut short by orders from within these very walls. Those orders were given to preserve power at any cost, and now, standing in the epicentre of that power, the protesters were exacting a form of retribution, fueled by the memory of their fallen comrades.

When it came to my safety, the office fell short of providing bulletproof jackets and helmets. For the first two days, they arranged CNG-powered auto-rickshaws for transportation, but after that, I had to rely on rented motorbikes and battery-operated rickshaws. Despite these limitations, I had no regrets. I chose not to use the protective gear — if I truly wanted it, I could have purchased it myself.

One night, one of my senior friends, a writer and chartered accountant in profession, who had been keeping a close eye on my situation, voiced his concern. “The way you’re going out into the field is risky,” he said, offering to sponsor the jackets and helmets himself. “Buy them tomorrow,” he urged. I was touched by his care, but I didn’t follow through.

Senior crime reporters at the office had their own advice: they suggested staying close to the police or law enforcement officers. Their reasoning was simple — our job was to document, not to put ourselves in harm’s way, they would say, and it made sense because the shoot-out most of the time comes from the security forces. But working in the real situation requires a different approach. I always kept mini packs of toothpaste and a gaslighter in my pocket for teargas situations.

Most of the time, I stayed among the students. It was within their ranks that I felt I had the best chance of seeing the story unfold in its entirety. By remaining close to the action, I could better understand the situation as it evolved, scanning my surroundings until I felt I had grasped the full picture.

Slogans, bullets, tear gas, sound grenades and bricks — vandalism and violence marked the last three weeks. The 19 days between July 18 and the fall of the government on August 5, along with the two intense days that followed, undoubtedly represent the most significant period of my journalistic career. Of all these moments, witnessing the public’s occupation of Ganabhaban at the outset stands as the most crucial.

In recent days, the unrest has tapered off. While attacks and vandalism continue, they are being covered by other colleagues as the intensity decreases rapidly. The hope now is that a new Bangladesh will rise from this turmoil, guided by the ideals of the youth and steering clear of conflict.

I’d like to conclude with a personal reflection. As a journalist, I’ve interacted with thousands of people, but during these three weeks of covering the movement, around 30 individuals checked in on me regularly. There were moments of despair when it felt like I was alone in this tumultuous world, but those concerns were dispelled by the care and support I received. This realisation has renewed my motivation, not just in my work but in my personal life as well.

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Yeasir Arafat

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