High profile BNP leaders, top cops in trouble

The sixth anniversary of the deadly grenade attack on Hasina rally sees progress in the case; the charge sheet will be filed soon against some high profile BNP leaders, senior cops and top militant leaders

Six years have passed since an assassination attempt was made on Sheikh Hasina, when she was leading a rally of the Awami League (AL) in Dhaka. And the cry for justice is taking shape afresh particularly on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of the event, the cry for justice is taking shape afresh.

On the afternoon of August 21, 2004, there was an orchestrated attack on an AL rally in Dhaka that resulted in the death of 24 senior AL leaders including Ivy Rahman, the women’s wing chief, and injuries to more than 400, scores of whom were crippled for life. Hasina was addressing the rally when the attack took place. Arges grenades which are used in battlefields were hurled in order to cause maximum damage on multiple targets including Hasina simultaneously. She, however, had a narrow escape and was whisked away to safety but by then she had suffered a critical hearing and eye sight impairment.

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) took charge of the probe soon after the incident. The investigation was conducted under supervision of the then State Minister for Home Lutfuzzaman Babar. 20 persons including one Joj Mian, a petty criminal and drug addict, a student and an AL leader were arrested in keeping with findings of the investigation. Three of them including Joj Mian were made to confess their crime before a Magistrate. But their involvement could not be established in the court of law.

The probe took a new turn when Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI) commander Mufti Abdul Hannan, who was arrested in connection with the 1996 Ramna Batamul bomb blasts in Dhaka, started singing during interrogation. Hannan confessed to his involvement in the grenade attack on the AL rally. He also disclosed names of 27 others who were involved in planning and execution of the attack. Those named included some senior BNP leaders and ministers including Abdus Salam Pintu. Hannan revealed that after carrying out the attack on the AL rally, he and other assailants were given protective cover by senior BNP leaders and former Ministers such as Ruhul Quddus Talukder and Altaf Hossen Chowdhury as well as JEI Amir and former Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami.

According to the Huji commander, BNP chief and prime minister of the day Khaleda Zia, her son and BNP Senior Secretary General Tareque Rahman and then State Minister for Home Lutfuzzaman Babar had asked him to carry out the attack to assassinate Sk Hasina.

The BNP alliance in power then did its best to deflect attention from Hannan’s confession. In fact, through multiple investigations, the Khaleda government tried to make out a case that the attack on AL rally was indeed engineered by the AL president, Sheikh Hasina to ‘tarnish the image of the BNP led Govt and project Bangladesh as a failed state,’ in Khaleda Zia’s own words. Attempts were also made to prove that ‘foreign enemies’ instigated the carnage and some listed criminals absconding in India had executed the attack. Following international outcry, the then BNP led Govt had, under compulsion, asked for help from the FBI and Interpol, but their findings were not made public.  Several attempts were made by the then BNP-JEI Govt to mislead the investigation by projecting the incident as AL’s own making with a view to discrediting and maligning the then regime..

A one man Judicial Inquiry Commission headed by Justice Mohd Joynul Abedin was set up to investigate into the attack. Report of the Commission was not made public but its executive summary claimed to have determined the masterminds behind the attack. In a veiled reference to India, it said these masterminds were a powerful intelligence agency of a “big foreign power” that had actively helped the emergence of Bangladesh by “cessation” from Pakistan. The report concluded that evidence pointed to the involvement of a “powerful foreign intelligence agency” which had created divisions among the people of Bangladesh on the lines of secularism and non secularism” as well as on the lines of “pro-liberation and anti - liberation”.

The report further added that the ‘foreign power’ never intended Bangladesh to grow as an independent and sovereign state and therefore, had carried out a series of bomb blasts at different times and at various places from Udichi in Jessore in March 1999 to the grenade attack on AL rally on August 21, 2004 to destabilize the country. It also accused this unnamed agency of carrying out propaganda about Bangladesh being a failed state in collusion with a section of international media. Surprisingly, the Commission urged the people of Bangladesh to rally round Bangladeshi nationalism and to identify the ‘enemy’ in order to safeguard against any conspiracy against the independence and sovereignty of Bangladesh.

Thereafter the BNP led Govt sent the case to cold storage. Fifty months after the attack when the Army-backed dispensation was ruling the country, a Dhaka court framed charges on Oct 29, 2008 against former BNP Minister Abdus Salam Pintu and 21 HUJI activists. A re-investigation into the case was ordered by the Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal Judge on Aug 3, 2009 as the previous investigations were ‘misleading and not based on truth’. Legal actions were taken against three previous CID investigators who had tried to mislead the case in line with political directives of the then government.

The fresh probe found that the role of three senior officers was suspicious as they were rewarded with promotions and prize postings after the Aug 21 attack. The role of the then Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Ashraful Huda came under the scanner as he had stayed back in office and issued directives asking the concerned officials on Aug 20, 2004 “to allow them to come” at the rally, an instruction bearing dubious meanings. Moreover he had stayed back for 3 days in office despite his on-duty leave for 15 days from Aug 18, 2004 to join an international conference at Honolulu. Huda was rewarded for his loyalty to the BNP led regime and made Commissioner DMP recalling him on expiry of his leave preparatory to retirement and four months after the Aug 21 attack he was made Inspector General of Police (IGP).

The two other concerned officials were the then Special Branch (SB) Chief Abdul Qayum and National Security Intelligence (NSI) Chief Maj Gen (Retd.) Rezzaqul Haider Chowdhury.  The two were responsible for gathering security intelligence. Qayum was  made Commissioner (DMP) and he later replaced Huda as the IGP and subsequently he was made Secretary to the Govt. Brig Gen Rezzaqul Haider Chowdhury who was chief of NSI at that time was  promoted to the rank of Major General. He is now in jail for his involvement in Chittagong arms haul in 2004.

According to the official news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, the investigation has found direct involvement of three BNP leaders, including its now senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman, three top militant leaders and three intelligence officers. About a dozen people, including BNP leader and then state minister for home affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar, will be charge sheeted   soon.

Taking charge of fresh investigation,  Special Superintendent of police of CID, Abdul Kahar Akand,  arrested four people, the former state minister for home Lutfuzzaman Babar, former HUJI Amir and chief of the Islamic Democratic Party Maulana Abdus Salam, BNP Dhaka City Ward Commissioner Ariful Haque and Pakistani national Abdul Majid Bhutt and interrogated them on remand several times. The investigators also questioned more than 20 people, including the then chief of the national security intelligence and director general of forces intelligence.

The investigation revealed that the grenades which were used in attacking the AL rally were part of a consignment sent to Kashmir. The Pakistani national, Abdul Majid Bhutt, collected a box of 100 grenades of the consignment from Chittagong and handed it over to BNP leader Abdus Salam Pintu’s brother Maulana Tajuddin in Dhaka. Tajuddin then handed it over to HUJI leader Mufti Abdul Hannan who distributed some of the grenades to his cadres who took part in the attack on the AL rally on August 21, 2004. This was also confirmed during the interrogation of Abdus Salam and Majid Bhutt.

The CID has now finalized charge-sheets against 22 people, including former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, his two brothers and outlawed HUJI top leader Mufti Hannan. The accused are Pintu's two brothers Maulana Tajuddin and Maulana Liton, Hannan's brother Mahibullah alias Mafizur Rahman alias Ovi, Hafez Maulana Abu Taher, Sharif Shahedul Islam Bipul, Maulana Abu Sayeed alias Dr Abu Zafar, Mufti Moin alias Abu Zandal alias Moinuddin alias Masum Billah, Abul Kalam Azad alias Bulbul, Jahangir Alam, Arif Hasan Sumon, Shahadatullah alias Jewel, Hossain Ahmed Tamim, Anisul Mursalin and his brother Mahibul Muttakin, Mohammad Iqbal, Maulana Abu Bakar alias Hafez Selim, Maulana Liton alias Zubayer, Ujjal alias Ratan, Rafiqul Islam Sabuj and Khalilur Rahman alias Maruf.Eight of them - Hannan, Bipul, Ovi, Abu Sayeed, Bulbul, Arif Hossain Sumon, Jahangir and Sabuj -made their confessional statements before the court. They and six others - Abu Taher, Jewel, Tamim, Pintu, Zandal and Ujjal - are behind bars while the others are absconding. Two of the absconder HUJI activists, Muttakin and Mursalin, are in India’s Tihar jail in New Delhi