After Joj Mia’s mother told a Dhaka Court recently how her son had been implicated falsely in the August 21 grenade attack cases during the BNP-Jamaat alliance government, her daughter Khorsheda Akhter gave an identical deposition yesterday.
In her testimony as the 103rd prosecution witness, Khorsheda, 22, told the Dhaka’s First Speedy Trial Tribunal that the CID had implicated Jamal Ahmed alias Joj in the two cases filed over the attack and assured the family members that he would not be harmed.
She said the CID had started giving financial assistance on condition of concealing the whole matter since the lone earning member, Joj, was behind the bar to “serve everyone’s well-being.”
“But...I disclosed the matter to a journalist of ATN [a private television channel] on August 20 [2006] after they [journalists] assured me that my brother would not be endangered once the true story is aired on TV,” she told the court.
The story got wide coverage in newspapers and private TV channels, exposing the state machinery’s sinister involvement in trying to bury the scope of justice for the victims of the massacre.
After the revelation, the CID officials declined to make further monetary payments to Joj Mia’s mother, she added.
On September 8, Joj Mia’s mother Jobeda Khatun for the first time, since the grenade attack, testified before any court and revealed that the then CID investigators used to pay the family Tk2,000 per month in absence of Joj.
Jobeda said she had taken Khorsheda with her while visiting the CID headquarters and the Kashimpur jail to see Joj.
A petty criminal, Joj was released in 2009, and the charges dropped against him after the Awami League government came to power. Investigators during the military-backed interim regime found that he had not been involved in the attack. He was arrested in 2005 at a Noakhali village but the law enforcers claimed that he was arrested at a slum at Mohakhali in the capital.
He was forced to make a confessional statement before magistrate saying that underworld gang – Seven Star Group, led by one of the most wanted criminals Subrata Bain Shuvro – had carried out the grenade attack.
Khorsheda said they had been informed about the arrest some 10 days later. She and her mother met Joj at Kashimpur Jail when her brother assured them that they would not face any problem as assured by the CID officials.
“My brother asked us to meet Ruhul Amin and Rashid [CID officials] at their Malibagh office...I along with my mother first met Rashid Sir at the CID office. He behaved politely, offered us snacks and said Joj Mia will be a state witness,” she added.
“Ruhul Amin Shaheb gave us the first instalment of monthly expense and said he will give us money every month. He also threatened us not to disclose the matter to anyone. He also gave us his mobile phone number to contact him for the monthly payment.”
She said her mother had taken a total of Tk12,500 from Ruhul Amin.
“I told them [journalists] that Ruhul Amin of the CID office used to pay us money every month to run our family...later [after disclosing the secret] Ruhul Amin Sir stopped receiving our phone calls. So, we had to sell our land to release Joj from jail,” Khorsheda said.
The tribunal judge, Shahed Nuruddin, recorded the testimony at the makeshift courtroom in front of the Dhaka Central Jail and adjourned the proceedings until September 29.
The August 21 attack on an Awami League rally left 24 people, including Ivy Rahman, wife of late president Zillur Rahman, dead and more than 300 others injured.