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Slow trial frustrates AL ranks

Hasan Jahid Tusher
Many ruling Awami League leaders and workers, mostly victims of the August 21, 2004, grenade attack, are frustrated that justice has not been delivered even eight years after the incident.
It is the failure of the present government that it could not bring the culprits to book despite the party being in power for the last three and a half years, some Awami League leaders said.
A total of 24 Awami League leaders and workers, including Ivy Rahman, wife of President Zillur Rahman, were killed in the attack on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue that August day.
A few hundred people including Prime Minister and party President Sheikh Hasina and central leaders of the party were injured in the attack.
Since the attack, the Awami League has been blaming the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, who were in power then, for the attack.
It had been saying that the attack was aimed at assassinating Hasina and key Awami League leaders.
The victims said more than three and a half years had gone by since the present Awami League-led grand alliance government assumed power.
But the government promises have been rather rhetoric, opined Awami League leaders, including some central leaders, asking not to be quoted.
"Unfortunately, the conspirators behind the August 21 grenade attack have not
been revealed through proper investigation. None has been brought to justice. So far nothing has happened. It hurts,” claimed Sultan Mohammad Mansur Ahmed, a victim of the attack.
“We are now in power. But we could not remove the masks of the patrons and attackers...It is totally our failure,” he told The Daily Star.
Mansur, a former Awami League organising secretary and lawmaker, demanded that the government bring those culprits to book immediately.
Former Awami League organising secretary Mahmudur Rahman Manna claimed that it seemed that there was no initiative to file fresh charges against the culprits.
He said something should have been done during this time of Awami League in power since the prime minister herself was the main target of the attack and had received serious injuries.
“There may be some deep political reason behind it,” said Manna.
Manna and Sultan have been sidelined by the party high ups for various reasons since 2008. They do not hold any key positions in the party
anymore.
A Swechchhasebak League leader who was injured in the attack expressed deep frustration at justice not being delivered.
Minister without portfolio Suranjit Sengupta said the last BNP-Jamaat government should be brought to justice for the August 21 grenade attack and August 17, 2005, countrywide bombings, even if it required framing new laws.
Speaking at a human chain programme in front of the Jatiya Press Club, he said the August 21 grenade attack was carried out to redo another August 15, 1975, when Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members were assassinated by disgruntled army officers.
Amir Hossain Amu, an advisory council member of the Awami League, told The Daily Star that the trial must be completed within the tenure of the present government.
He said the government should give special attention to this issue.
He claimed that no other government would hold trials of the August 21 grenadeattack.