"The demonstrators were heading to the Awami League office in Dhanmondi. We tried to refrain them from doing so," Maruf Hossain, deputy commissioner of Ramna zone, Dhaka metropolitan police said to the journalists at the time. When asked why they were shoving the agitating students only instead of the armed ones, he said, "When the students were dispersed, the police got confused. We couldn't identify who was on whose side. So, those who threw stones at the police were stopped only."