'Agnikonthhi' is back

Fresh from a day’s break, Lucky Akter – the sloganeer extraordinaire – returned to Shahbagh demonstrations on Tuesday demanding the death penalty of all convicted war criminals.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 12 Feb 2013, 10:47 AM
Updated : 12 Feb 2013, 11:37 AM

She was hospitalised on Sunday night after she was hit in the head in an attack at the mass movement venue of Shahbagh intersection, named as ‘Projonmo Chattar’.

Before the beginning of the three-minute silence programme announced from the main stage, called Ganajagaran Mancha, Akter joined the protests having recharged her batteries.

The huge demonstration running for the eighth consecutive instantaneously greeted Lucky with slogans.

Akter told the gathering: “You will never be confused by any sort of false propaganda. We’re united; we’ll never let the unity destroyed.”

Then the frontline activist with her fiery voice started leading the slogans for the thousands of youths at Shahbagh, shouting ‘Joy Bangla’.

The three-minute silence started soon after her slogans. At the end of the nationwide silence, she again started chanting slogans.

She received injuries in the head at the venue on Sunday night but returned to her favourite place at midnight for a while.

“Somebody hit me in the head from behind. I didn’t see him,” she had said after returning to Shahbagh after receiving treatment.

The physicians said that she was suffering from dehydration since she continued chanting slogans for a week with little rest.

Amid the allegations that the cadres of the ruling Awami League’s student wing Bangladesh Chhatra League assaulted her, its General Secretary Siddiqui Nazmul Alam in a Facebook status called her ‘sister’.

In the status posted in the early hours of Tuesday, Alam wrote: “Lucky is my sister. We two are the victims of a sickening propaganda machine”.

“...We would continue chanting slogans to facilitate the path for the trial of the war criminals. We were in Shahbagh, are still here and also will be. Joy Bangla,” he added.

Akter has been shouting slogans demanding death penalty for Jamaat-e-Islami leader Quader Molla and other ‘war criminals’ since Feb 5. She has caught the eye of media and some have termed her ‘Agnikonthi’.

Her photo was uploaded on the social media where users wrote comments like – ‘Salute Lucky Akter’.

Hailing from Feni district, Akter passed her HSC from Milestone School and College in Dhaka’s Uttara and enrolled at the Department of English at Jagannath University in 2007.

She is a Social Welfare Secretary for Bangladesh Chhatra Union’s central council.

She got affiliated with Chhatra Union’s politics through Jagannath University’s ‘Dormitory movement’ in 2009.