Less than three weeks after Kazi Arif, deputy chief of the leftist Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) party, was gunned down along with five others while addressing a peace rally in the south-western district of Kushtia, on the night of 7 March 1999, powerful military-issue grenades rolled into a crowd watching a cultural show in the nearby city of Jessore. The explosions killed six people and sent over 150 to hospital.
The show in Jessore had been organised by Udichi, an organisation which has done much to keep cultural activities running during the country's hard times. Udichi began as the cultural wing of the erstwhile pro-Moscow Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), but over the years had evolved a distinct identity serving as a platform for budding artistes. It had never been thought of as a threat by anyone, and thus the sense of shock was more pronounced.
Initially, the attacks were blamed on local Maoists who are active in southwestern Bangladesh and who have been involved in violent attacks. Kazi Arif and CPB had an anti-Maoist stance and could be considered logical targets of Maoist wrath. But this was soon discounted in the Jessore case.
Within a week, more than 50 people belonging to various Islamist parties were arrested. The newly cast terrorist shadow of Osama bin Laden and his alleged Bangladeshi front, Harkatul Jihad, sprang up as prime suspects. And unlike the bungled attempt on poet Shamshur Rahman's life (see Himal March 1999) in which axe-wielding alleged Jihadis were held back by the poet's wife and daughter-in-law, the tactics used at the Udichi show testified that the masterminds behind the attack were experts at mass killing, and trained to vanish without trace.