AUGUST 21 GRENADE ATTACK: No justice yet

Victims and victim families are still crying for justice for the August 21, 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally as two cases for the attack are still pending with a tribunal while the plotters are yet to be identified.
Twenty four people, including former president Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy Rahman, were killed and over 200 were injured in the grenade attack on a rally of the then main opposition Bangladesh Awami League in front of its central office on Bangabandhu Avenue on August 21, 2004.
The Awami League president, Sheikh Hasina, now the prime minister, among others, escaped the attack but the explosions caused her hearing damage.
Prosecutors said that the trial of the two cases might be concluded in three months while defence counsels argued that there should not have any timeframe for trial for the sake of justice.
They said that currently, the defence counsel were examining the second investigation officer of the cases, Fazlul Kabir, a retired assistance superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department, whose testimony was recorded on June 1.
After his examination is completed, the final investigation officer, Abdul Kahar Akand, would be produced as the last prosecution witness in the cases.
The victims, victim families and rights activists, however, believed that had the government taken the issue seriously, they would have got justice earlier and the recent rise of extremism might have been prevented.
They expressed their disappointment with the delay in the trial and said that the ‘actual plotters’ must be identified and brought to justice.
‘I want to know who wanted to kill my party leaderships and why,’ said Mahbuba Parvin, a victim still living with splinters in her body she sustained in the attack.
Mahbuba, also woman affairs secretary of the Dhaka district unit of Awami Swechchhasebak League, said, ‘I want punishment of the people behind damaging of my beautiful life.’
Two cases – one for the murder and the other under the Explosive Substances Act – were filed for the grenade attack while a judicial inquiry was also conducted.
The one-member judicial inquiry commission of Justice Joynul Abedin, formed on the day after the attack, submitted its report to the home ministry on October 2, 2004 with 14 short- and seven long-term recommendations.
‘The commission has not been able to identify the actual culprits,’ the report said, ‘but it has nevertheless been able to identify the masterminds behind the incident.’
Apart from different investigations locally, the government had also asked for help from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Interpol but their findings had never been made public.
The course for the investigation into, and the story about, the grenade attack had been changed time and again with the changes in the state power.
The Criminal Investigation Department had arrested 20 people and allegedly forced George Miah, Abul Hasem Rana and Shafiqul Islam to confess to the attack in 2005.
In the statement, George Miah, a man from Noakhali, reportedly said that a team of 14 took part in the attack being instructed by top crime suspects Tanvirul Islam Joy and Subrata Bain, reportedly hiding in India, and the 14, including George, was paid Tk 5,000 each for the attack.
The investigation into the two cases took a new turn after the military-controlled interim regime took over the power on January 11, 2007 with Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami operations commander Mufti Abdul Hannan, arrested on October 1, 2005 in connection with the Ramna Batamul blast, making a statement before a magistrate on November 1, 2007.
On June 9, 2008, the CID pressed charges against former BNP deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, Mufti Abdul Hannan and 20 others in the cases.
After recording testimonies of 61 prosecution witnesses, the Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal-1, on August 3, 2009 ordered further investigations into the cases following petitions filed by the prosecution after the Awami League assumed in power.
On July 3, 2011, the CID submitted supplementary charge sheets against 30 more people including Tarique Rahman, Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia’s eldest son, Lutfozzaman Babar, former BNP state minister for home, Abul Harris Chowdhury, political secretary to prime minister during Khaleda Zia’s 2001-2006 tenure, and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, the then Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general.
On March 18, 2012, the tribunal framed charges against the 30, in addition to the 22 people indicted earlier, in the cases.
The tribunal judge, Shahed Nuruddin, has so far recorded testimonies of 224 of the 491 prosecution witnesses, mostly either serving or retired government officials. The tribunal recorded the testimonies of 48 prosecution witnesses in one year.
Additional chief prosecutor Musharraf Hossain Kajol said that they were trying to conclude the trail within three months.
He, however, said that assistance from the defence counsel was crucial to expedite the trial and alleged that the defence counsel were delaying the trial with unnecessary cross-examinations.
Defence counsel Mohammad Ali, also a BNP leader, denied the allegation and said, ‘There should not be any harry in the trial for the sake of justice.’
He alleged that the state mechanism was harassing him and he had languished in jail for giving legal assistance to the accused.
Of the 52 accused, 25 are in jail and 8 are on bail.
Mojaheed was dropped from the trial as he was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on November 22, 2015 on charge of crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 War for Independence.
The rest 18 accused, including Tarique, are being tried in their absence.
CID special superintendent Abdul Kahar Akand said that they sought Interpol assistance for bringing back four accused – Tarique, now in London, former BNP lawmaker Shah Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad, believed to be in Bangkok, Maulana Taj Uddin, now in South Africa, and Harris Chowdhury, whose whereabouts was still unknown.
He said that they were trying to determine the whereabouts of the rest 14 accused including Hanif Enterprise owner Mohammad Hanif, the then Directorate General of Forces Intelligence director ATM Amin, who later was promoted to major general, and the then DGFI general staff officer-1 Saiful Islam Joarder, who went into retirement.
In August 2015, the home minister, Asaduzzamna Khan Kamal, claimed that South Africa agreed to send back Taj Uddin, also Pintu’s brother.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net