34 July 2024: One point, one demand — Sheikh Hasina must resign 

One demand. 

No more nine points. No more justice. Only one demand. 

Sheikh Hasina must resign. 

The crowd that heard it stretched past the monument to Doel Chattar, past Jagannath Hall, down toward the medical college and Polashi, and when the words reached the back of it the roar came up like weather.

It was 3 August. For the people, it was 34 July. And the movement had finally found its single voice.

It felt, that week, as if two centuries of political theory had boiled down to what we were doing in the street, when a girl shouted in front of the police, "Police are behind us, and freedom ahead." 

The decision to reduce the movement's demands to a single point was not immediate or unanimous. 

Four of the mid-level coordinators agreed on the idea on the night of 2 August, but some senior leaders were still hesitant the following morning. 

The turning point came when they saw that many ordinary protesters had already united around the demand for Sheikh Hasina's resignation. 

Abdul Qader, who came out of his hiding place in Gulshan at noon, said that the size and determination of the crowd convinced those within the movement who had been uncertain about adopting the one-point demand. 

The one-point demand 

The rally began around five; at half past, Nahid took the stage. 

Those who had done the killing were the killers, he said; no one should expect justice from them.

Then Asif Mahmud read outlined a non-cooperation movement from the next day: no taxes, no utility bills, no offices or courts or factories, no remittance through the banks, nothing that kept the state running. 

Earlier that morning, the prime minister had offered dialogue, saying the doors of Ganabhaban were open and that she wanted to avoid conflict. Nahid responded on behalf of the protesters: "There is no dialogue with bullets. We would not be sitting down for any discussion." 

Abdul Qader, the coordinator who declared the 9-point demands, told TBS how they progressed from the 9-point to the ultimate 1-point demand. 

"We, the four second-layer coordinators, decided on the night of 2 August that on the next day, we will declare the 1-point demand. There were some seniors who were not willing to push for 1-point demand even till the morning of 3 August. I contacted my seniors and started my journey at 12 noon from my hideout at Gulshan. When I arrived, I found a sea of people." 

Qader continued, "One of our comrades took me to the Shaheed Minar from the Sheikh Rasel Tower. The people were excited, also anxious. There was anger, anguish, and hope for a new dawn. I saw that Nahid bhai, Asif bhai, Mahfuj bhai, Hasnat, Sarjis and Baker were standing at one side. When I went there, Mahfuj bhai asked me—"what did you guys discuss?" 

"Nahid bhai was delivering a speech, and the people there were demanding for 1-point. They were eager to hear it from Nahid bhai. Finally, Nahid bhai declared 1-point," Qader said, "It was the popular demand. The people wanted Hasina out. Their conviction changed the opinions of the doubters within our ranks. And the people fulfilled the 1-point demand. They banished Hasina." 

At Shaheed Minar, the gathering brought together people from across the city: parents with toddlers on their shoulders, rickshaw-pullers stopping to watch the procession, and young people standing on trees and lamp-posts with flags in their hands. 

"We, the four second-layer coordinators, decided on the night of 2 August that on the next day, we will declare the 1-point demand. There were some seniors who were not willing to push for 1-point demand even till the morning of 3 August. I contacted my seniors and started my journey at 12 noon from my hideout at Gulshan. When I arrived, I found a sea of people." Abdul Quader, coordinator of The Students Against Discrimination 

From Shaheed Minar, I walked to the Raju Memorial and watched the crowd continue to gather and move through the area. The scale of the procession remained unchanged for hours, with people continuing to arrive and participate. 

Barrister Manzur Al Matin, who had filed a writ petition seeking to stop the killings that was later rejected by the court, watched a procession arrive from Rampura and said that the scale of public participation suggested a major shift in the political situation.

The crowd gathered outside the Shahbagh police station, where tensions remained high amid public anger over the police response during the previous days. Some protesters threw bottles and shoes toward the police behind the fence, while volunteers formed a line to prevent the situation from escalating. An elderly woman approached the police and shouted, "Why are you killing my children?" In Mirpur-10, thousands of students and citizens blocked the roundabout. In Uttara, students and parents stood shoulder to shoulder near BNS Centre, carrying placards like "My brother is in the grave, why is the killer outside?" and "Police, whose side are you on?" 

Violence outside Dhaka 

But the day was not gentle everywhere. Dhaka's marches were left largely alone; outside the capital, the killing went on. In Cumilla, ruling-party men fired into a rally and shot 10 students; in Bogura, 6 more took bullets; Sylhet counted its injured past 100; in Sreepur, a man was killed. Two were dead by nightfall, and dozens were carried away.

That night word came that the League had called a 'peace rally' for the next day, and the group chats filled with fear — Chhatra League and Jubo League, it was said, were coming onto the streets with weapons. 

Development in the cantonment 

That afternoon, from around half past one, the army chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman, gathered his officers at the cantonment's Helmet Hall, with others joining through video links from garrisons across the country. 

He spoke for about half an hour. He told them that the army had been deployed in support of the civil administration and was required to follow government orders during a crisis. He also stated that soldiers had not carried out killings and presented figures on the use of live and blank rounds to support his position.

To explain his perspective, he referred to two songs, using one to suggest that the situation had developed around him rather than being initiated by him. He also quoted a line from Ayyub Bachchu's song "Ural Debo Akashe" ("I will fly to the sky").

When brigadiers and senior officers raised their hands to speak, he asked to hear from junior officers first. Six or seven of them stood and described their experiences during the previous weeks.

One officer spoke about Khulna, where a slogan had been directed at the army that had not previously been used against it in independent Bangladesh, and questioned why such a situation had emerged. 

Others described tensions within their own families over the role they had been assigned during the unrest. A woman officer from Rajshahi spoke about the deaths across the country and mentioned that she had been a neighbour of Mir Mugdho, who was killed while distributing water in Uttara. After she finished speaking, the hall and the connected screens across the country became quiet.

When the meeting resumed after a break, the army chief spoke briefly. Referring to the concerns raised by the junior officers, he issued an order that changed the army's role: no further firing was to take place.