Mercy pleas of Mufti Hannan, two others rejected

The president has rejected petitions for clemency filed by banned Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and its two activists, clearing the way of their executions any time for killing three people and injuring former UK high commissioner Anwar Choudhury in a grenade attack in 2004. 
‘The jail authorities will now take all measure to execute them following the jail code as the president has rejected their mercy petitions,’ home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told New Age on Saturday. 
Superintendents of the Dhaka Central Jail and Kashimpur High Security Central Jail told New Age that they were yet to get the order of the president.
The order of the president would reach Kashimpur High Security Central Jail through the Dhaka Central Jail said prison officials. 
On March 27, the three condemned convicts – Mufti Hannan, Sharif Shahedul Alam Bipul and Delwar Hossain Ripon – preferred presidential clemency and their petitions were later sent to the president. 
Earlier on March 19, the Appellate Division rejected their petitions for a review of its earlier verdict upholding a High Court verdict that had sentenced the three to death.
On March 21, the copy of the Appellate Division full verdict dismissing the review petitions reached Kashimpur High Security Central Jail and Sylhet Central Jail.
Mufti Hannan and Sharif Shahidul Alam Bipul are in condemned cells at the high security jail and Delwar Hossain Ripon is in the condemned cell at Sylhet Central Jail, the prison officials said.
According to the sensational case, the convicts threw several grenades aiming at the entrance of Hazrat Shahjalal shrine in Sylhet city on May 21, 2004 with the intention to kill the then UK high commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar Chowdhury when he was about to enter the shrine.
Anwar Chowdhury, Sylhet deputy commissioner Abul Hossain and 36 bystanders were injured while assistant police sub-inspector Kamal Uddin and two bystanders were killed in the grenade attack.

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