On Sunday, the ex-wife of a leader of a militant outfit based in India-administered Kashmir narrated how the assailants in the August 21 carnage used their house to meet secretly and hoard grenades before the attack.
Nahid Layla Kanon, a prosecution witness and ex-wife of Pakistani national Abu Yusuf Butt (alias Abdul Majid), a leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji), Sunday testified before the Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 in the capital.
She said she met Arif Hasan Sumon – an accused in the case – in 2003 when she lived in a hostel at Mohammadpur. Arif was a resident of Mohammadpur. He built a close relation with Kanon.
“Sumon was 3-4 years junior to me. He treated me like his elder sister. He used to visit our place,” she said.
After Kanon’s mother requested him to find a bridegroom for her, Sumon suggested Majid.
Majid was a tenant of Sumon’s house in Mohammadpur. He was a Pakistani national and member of a militant outfit. “Sumon concealed the information from our family,” Kanon said.
Kanon and Majid got married on October 3, 2003 and Kanon started living at Majid’s place at Mohammadpur.
Huji leader Mufti Abdul Hannan, Huji operative Maulana Idris, former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu’s brother Maulana Tajuddin and Arif were present at the marriage ceremony.
“Militant leaders Maulana Idris and Tajuddin visited our Mohammadpur house frequently after the marriage. One day my husband brought two cartons to our house. I saw the cartons full of grenades and bullets,” she told the court.
A couple of days before the grenade attack, Maulana Yusuf, Munir, Tajuddin, Mufti Hannan and some unknown men sat for a meeting in Kanon’s house. She was not allowed to go to the meeting room.
“But from an adjacent room I overheard that they were going to attack an Awami League rally. After the guests were gone I asked Majid about that. He said nothing,” she said.
On the day of attack Tajuddin took away the carton from their house. After the attack Kanon asked her husband again about the attack.
“Then he said Harkatul Jihad Al Islami [Huji] Chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and Tajuddin did that,” she told the court.
Majid and Kanon divorced on December 2, 2011.
After recording her statement, Judge Shahed Nuruddin fixed today (September 16) for cross-examination.
A grenade attack on an Awami League rally left 24 party leaders and workers dead, including immediate past president Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy Rahman. As many as 300 others were injured in the attack.
Sheikh Hasina, the then leader of the opposition and now prime minister, narrowly escaped death but sustained ear injuries caused by the impact of the blasts.
Hannan made a confessional statement on his involvement in other bomb and grenade attacks excepting the August 21 one.