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Grenade Attack on 2004 AL Rally

Charge sheet likely to be submitted this week

Staff Correspondent
The long awaited charge sheet in the grenade attack on an Awami League (AL) rally in the capital about four years ago is now ready and is likely to be submitted this week.
Inspector General of Police 0GP) Nur Mohammad said the charge sheet is almost ready. "I ■“don’t find any reasons for not
submitting it this week," he said when contacted yesterday.
Investigation officer (IO) of the case Fazlul Kabir, CID assistant superintendent of police, was now giving a final look into the charges that run into several hundred pages to avoid any loopholes or information gap.
A senior official of CED (Criminal Investigation Department) said, “We expect to submit the
charge sheet to court sometime this week." The official, who assisted the IO in probing the case, however sought anonymity.
The grisly grenade attack on the AL rally at Bangabandhu Avenue on August 21 in 2004 left 24 people killed and around 300 maimed.
CID officials said during investigation they found that a couple of the then junior ministers of the BNP-led alliance government had starkly influenced police officials to manipulate investigation process. The charge sheet would contain details of the role of former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar, deputy minister for information Abdus Salam Pintu and several other BNP leaders in this regard.
The then police officials Ruhul Amin and Munshi Atique, who manipulated the probe as per their instructions, might also figure in the charge sheet.
And it might also indicate if more influential people were among die masterminds of the grenade attack.
'Babar staged a drama inviting Interpol and FBI experts and seeking their assistance in probe,' said a senior official at the Police Headquarters.
Charges would be pressed against 25 to 30 people, including Harkat-ul- Jihad (Huji) leader Mufti Abdul Hannan, for orchestrating the attack.
"None of those who diverted the probe to protect the culprits will be spared," said a senior CID official. When the charges are pressed, some crucial instructions might also come from court regarding the case.
New cases may have to be filed against the instigators and supplementary charges pressed against those who manipulated the probe, hesaid.
A total of 16 people including Pintu, arrested in the case, are now id jail. The others are Mufti Hannan, his brother Mojibul alias Mojibur Rahman. Mufti Shahidul Islam. Shahedul Alam Bipul, Hossain Tamim, Ali Ahmed, Abu Jandal, Arif Hasan, Bakibillah, Abul Kalam Azad Bulbul, Jahangir Alam, Abdul Kuddus, Omar Faruk, Amirul Islam and Mosaddek Billah.
Of them, Mufti Hannan, Bipul, Abu Jandal, Tamim. Arif Hasan. AH Ahmed and Abul Kalam Azad Bulbul have given confessional statements in court. They said 15 Huji leaders and activists took part
in the attack in an attempt to kill AL chief Sheikh Hasina, who narrowly escaped the attack
Less than a month into the attack, the then ruling BNP lawmakers in presence of prime minister Khaleda Zia in parliament blamed AL for perpetrating the attack on its own rally.
The government stance influenced the then investigators of the case to come up with a fabricated story involving a ward level AL leader and former ward commissioner of Maghbazar area in the capital, Mokhlesur Rahman. They attempted to feed people with the woven story using an ostensible confessional statement of a petty criminal, Joj Miah, naming Mokhlesur as a planner of the attack.
Police officials, who had been tight-lipped on the case, now say the then supervising officer of the case, CID’s Special Superintendent Ruhul Amin, invented Joj Miah to keep the real culprits beyond the probe.
Joj's statement drew media criticisms finally making it appear as a blatantly fabricated one when his sister divulged to the media that CID had been paying his family Tk 2,500 a month for upkeep since his
Based on almost identical confessional statements of Joj Miah and two others, CID investigators even attempted to submit a charge sheet in the case. But the government held it back following media flak.
The case took a new turn when the military-backed caretaker government on March 25 last year recognised the August 21 assassination attempt on Hasina as a sensational case and registered it with the home ministry's monitoring cell for proper investigation and quickdisposal.
A fresh investigation then started presuming that a group of Afghan war veterans led by Mufti Abdul Hannan might have carried out the attack since they had hands in many other grenade attacks in the country.