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BNP shifts stance

Now sees no political link in Aug 21 attack

Rakib Hasnet Suman
The then ruling BNP in 2004 was quick to conclude that the August 21 grenade attacks on an Awami League rally was orchestrated by none other than AL men.
But now its leaders claim there was actually no political involvement in the attacks.
Some of the BNP leaders even say the field-level investigations into the gruesome attacks had shortcomings which would help the real culprits get away scot-free.
They strongly deny the allegation that the BNP government or the party leaders, includingTarique Rahman, had links to that incident.
The BNP leaders also have claimed to The Daily Star that the then BNP government made its highest efforts to bring the culprits to book.
On August 21, 2004, assailants hurled grenades at the AL rally on Bangabandhu Avenue where party chief and then leader of the opposition Sheikh Hasina was deliveringspeech.
Two dozen AL leaders and workers including incumbent president Zillur Rahman's wife Ivy Rahman were killed and 300 others injured.
Hasina narrowly escaped death.
Eleven days after the grenade attacks, the then prime minister Khaleda Zia, also chairperson of BNP,
pinned the blame on AL leaders.
"As investigations are on, I won't name anyone. But I do know for sure that there was a plot, which is still being nursed. The attack was part of a conspiracy to tarnish my government's image," she told a party meeting on September 2, 2004.
One month later, reinforcing Khaleda’s claim, several BNP lawmakers in parliament blamed the AL for carrying out the attack on its own rally.
BNP lawmaker Shamsuzzoha Khan alleged that AL itself had exploded the grenades at its rally as part of a conspiracy against the government.
The then foreign minister Morshed Khan had said, "We know better who sheds crocodile tears at meetings with foreign envoys and from where the money for treatment comes."
Abul Khaer Bhuiyan, another BNP lawmaker, had asked the then state minister for home Lutfozzarnan Babar in parliament why AL had changed the rally venue.
Babar replied, "It’s a good question. The Awami League had sought permission for Muktangan, but in the afternoon they moved the venue to Bangabandhu Avenue."
Eight years on, in another August, no BNP leaders agreed to comment on these statements.
Back in 2004, police arrested several AL men and took a hapless Joj Mia from Noakhali saying he was responsible for the attack.
But the media exposed that the police were paying his needy family a monthly allowance in exchange of his posing as an attacker.
The BNP blasted the media and kept on claiming that Joj Mia was the real deal.
In continual support of the their stance, BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul
Kabir Rizvi at a press briefing on August 21 last year claimed the Criminal Investigation Department rightly implicated Joj Mia in the grenade attack cases.
After assuming power in 2009, the AL-led government took initiatives for further investigations into the case.
The investigation officer submitted a supplementary charge sheet with the names of a few BNP leaders includ-i n g Ta r i q u e Rahman, Lutfozzarnan Babar, Abdus Salam Pintu and Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad.
Of them, Babar and Pintu are behind bars, while Kaikobad, also a BNP lawmaker, is on the run.
Rafiqul Islam Mia, a senior lawyer and member of BNP standing committee, says, "I have gone through the documents of the case. Tarique and other political leaders had no involvement.
"Rather, I am sure the government itself is in the dark as they could not find out anything about those who were involved in the attack."
He said after the 1/11 changeover the military-backed caretaker government tried their best to find outTarique's involvement in the incident in vain.
"A supplementary charge sheet based on Mufti Hannan's statement has been submitted by the Awami League government keeping the name of Tarique.
"But Hannan himself withdrew his statement saying he was beaten severely to give the statement," Rafiqul, who was a minister of BNP government during 1991-96, told The Daily Star.
Asked whether there was any slackness about identifying the criminals, BNP leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, who was in Khaleda's cabinet in 1991-
96 and 2001-06, said they had made the highest efforts to identify the culprits.
He, however, did not agree to make further comments, saying the case was under trial.
Asked why his government tried to frame Joj Mia, former deputy minister Ruhul Quddus Talukder Dulu said some investigators or field-level officials probably did not work properly.
But the BNP government high-ups were serious about finding out the truth and identifying the real culprits, he added.
"Real criminals will remain out of reach if the present government tries to implicate Tarique Rahman in the case," Dulu, a close aide of Tarique, told The Daily Star.
Earlier on September 28 last year, the main opposition BNP demanded the names of its Senior Vice-chairman Tarique Rahman and other opposition leaders be dropped from the two cases filed over the grenade attacks.
Tarique is now undergoing treatment in the UK and possibility of his return to the country is very slim during the rule of AL-led government.
"Mufti Abdul Hannan's petition for withdrawing his earlier statement proves that Tarique had been implicated in the cases as part of a conspiracy to prevent him from running for the next general elections,” said BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
Earlier on September 27 last year, Hannan submitted the petition for withdrawing the statement he gave on April 7 the same year.
In the April 7 statement, he linked Hawa Bhaban, some former BNP ministers and a number of intelligence officials to the grenade attacks.