As the nation is set to observe the 11th anniversary of the August 21, 2004 grenade attacks on an Awami League (AL) rally in the capital city on Friday, the prosecution side expressed the hope to complete its trial by December next.
“We are committed to complete the trial of August 21, 2004 grenade attack cases by this year,” public prosecutor Advocate Mosharraf Hossain Kazol dealing with the grenade attack case told a news agency Wednesday.
He hoped that it would require four and a half months more to complete the trials as 176 prosecution witnesses out of 491 testified after giving depositions to the court and said that deposition of maximum 40 more witnesses will be taken.
Nineteen-charge sheeted accused out of 52 including Tarique Rahman BNP senior vice-chairman and elder son of BNP Chairperson and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia are still at large while 26 accused are in jail and eight others including three former inspector generals of police (IGPs) are on bail, he informed. Replying to a question about the delay in the trial process, the PP said, “The main cause of the delay is the movement of the accused outside Dhaka as some of the accused in the cases were also accused in other criminal case.”
“Some of accused in the August 21 grenade attack cases were also accused in the 10-truck arms haul case in Chittagong, Ramna Batamul blast case in Dhaka, planting of 76-kilogram bomb case in Gopalganj and grenade attack on UK ambassador to Dhaka at Shahjalal shrine in Sylhet,” he said.
“One of the accused in the cases, former minister and Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed is an accused of a case of crimes against humanity during the War of Liberation in 1971,” he also said.
The state lawyer also said that the existing court where the case is now being conducted is too small to deal with such a case, as the state and defense counsels alongside with the accused in the cases used to seat together, he also said.
“We have already forwarded to the concerned authorities a set of proposals including fixation of three permanent dates for hearing of the grenade attack cases on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and shift those to a temporary court set up at Bakshibazar, for quick disposal of its trial,” he also said.
The gruesome grenade attacks were carried out at an anti-terrorism rally of Awami League (AL) on August 21 in 2004 during the BNP-Jamaat alliance government aiming to eliminate the party leadership, in which, 24 people including the then Mahila AL president and wife of late Bangladesh’s President Zillur Rahman were killed and over 500 others injured and many of them became crippled for life.
With the grace of the almighty, the then opposition leader and incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and other front ranking leaders of the AL escaped the carnage. AL leaders including the then mayor of Dhaka City late Mohammad Hanif saved their party chief after forming a human shield.
Two separate cases were lodged – one for murder and the other under explosive act – were filed to this end.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) submitted two separate supplementary charge sheets in the August 21 grenade attack cases against 30 people on July 3 in 2012 after a fresh investigation into the matter.
With them, the number of accused in the cases stands at 52 as CID earlier on July 11, 2008 indicted 22 people including ex-deputy minister of the BNP Abdus Salam Pintu and chief of the banned outfit Harkatul Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) Mufti Abdul Hannan.
During the BNP-Jamaat rule till October 2006, the investigators were out to divert the probe to a wrong direction to save the real culprits. The CID failed to submit chargesheets though leaders in the then government claimed several times that the probe was about to be completed and everything would be revealed. Media reports on the cooked-up story of Joj Mia brought to public attention by the then CID officials’ attempt to derail the investigation. During the last caretaker government’s tenure, the first charge sheets in the August 21 cases were placed against 22 people, including ex-BNP deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu and 21 Huji leaders and workers.
The visible attempt to frustrate the case by the then BNP-led regime prompted the subsequent interim government to order a fresh investigation into the case.
“We have information that 19 among the 52 charge sheeted accused in the August 21 grenade attack cases are now staying abroad and are expecting to bring them back to the country within the quickest possible time,” a top police official said.
“The list of the charge sheeted accused has already been sent to the Interpol. At the same time we are taking special care so that none of the criminals could flee the country obtaining bail,” he added.
Of the accused, former minister and Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar, ex-deputy Minister Abdus Salam Pintu and Harkatul Jihad chief Mufti Abdul Hannan are in jails.
Former inspector generals of police (IGPs) Ashraful Huda, Shahudul Haque , and Khoda Baksh Chowdhury, ex-SP Ruhul Amin of CID, former ASPs of CID Atiqur Rahman, and Abdur Rashid are on bail.
Of the 19 fugitive accused, Tarique Rahman is now staying in London and Harris Chowdhury in Asam in India. Among others, Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad is living in Bangkok, owner of Hanif Enterprise, Mohammad Hanif is in Kolkata, Maj Gen (retd) ATM Amin in America, Lt Col (retd) Saiful Islam Joarder in Canada, Babu alias Ratul Babu in India, Anisul Morsalin and his brother Mohibul Muttakin in an Indian jail, intelligence sources said.
Militant leaders Shafikur Rahman, Mufti Abdul Hai, Maulana Abu Bakar, Iqbal, Khalilur Rahman, Jahangir Alam alias Badar, Maulana Liton alias Zobair alias Delwar and Maulana Tajul Islam, the then deputy commissioner (east) and deputy commissioner (south) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Md Obaidur Rahman and Khan Syed Hasan are also staying abroad, the sources said adding that most of them are now in Pakistan.
Of the fugitive accused, Maulana Tajuddin and Babu are brothers of the detained former deputy minister of the BNP government Abdus Salam Pintu, who is also a chargesheeted accused in the August 21 grenade attack case.
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