August 17 Series Blasts 33pc cases still pending

The trials of about one-third of the 159 cases over the countrywide ‘simultaneous bomb attacks’ by the banned extremist outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh on August 17, 2005 were still pending, officials said on Sunday.

Police headquarters officials said that 96 cases were disposed of as of now.

The chief of the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit at the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Monirul Islam, termed the August 17 ‘simultaneous bomb blasts’ as one of the ‘successful’ incidents in the record of extremist attacks.

He said that the main target of the attack was not to kill people but to show the capacity of the extremist outfit to Bangladesh and the world.

‘Actually, there is no other record of a similar synchronised attack. It was one of the most successful attacks when they built up their maximum capacity,’ Monirul said.

Like the CTTC Unit chief, a former military officer, who has served in the Rapid Action Battalion, said that the extremist group, with the blasts, mainly shared their agenda with the people.

At least two persons were killed and over 50 wounded as the outfit carried out the bomb attacks at about 500 points in all the districts of the country except Munshiganj on August 17 in 2005.

At least 159 cases were lodged in different parts of the country over the blasts, according to the police headquarters.

Police submitted charge sheets in 143 cases against over 1,072 accused and the final reports were submitted in the rest 16 cases as the accused could not be identified in those cases.

Of the 143 cases, the trials of 47 were still pending across the country, police statistics show.

Rapid Action Battalion headquarters statistics show that 455 suspects were held in connection with the cases and among them 67 were caught by the RAB.

Apart from the suspects, the RAB has captured a total of 1,124 alleged members of the JMB, it said.

The JMB had shown their existence and strength to the nation by carrying out the August 17 series blasts. But their organisational activities suffered a huge setback with the execution of death sentences to the JMB’s top six leaders in 2007.

The six leaders — Shaikh Abdur Rahman, his second-in-command Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai, military commander Ataur Rahman Sunny, think-tank Abdul Awal, Khaled Saifullah and Salahuddin — were hanged on March 30 in 2007 in the case over the killing of two judges in Jhalokathi district.

Counter-terrorism officials told New Age that the JMB was later renamed Jamaatul Mujahedin and Salauddin Salehin, who escaped from a prison van, was now leading the outfit from a neighbouring country.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net