commissioner to India Tofail K Haider.
“Now the verdict has been declared and the other party should be happy about it,” said Haider, who was the high commissioner in India during 2004.
On April 1, 2004, police seized 4,930 types of sophisticated firearms, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11,40,520 bullets when they were being loaded on to 10 trucks from two engine boats at the jetty of the CUFL.
A Chittagong special court yesterday sentenced 14 accused, including Matiur Rahman Nizami and Lutfozzaman Babar of the then BNP-led four-party alliance government, to death in arms smuggling case.
Another diplomat who also served in the Bangladesh Mission in India said that time the relationship was bad.
“Everybody knows what happened at that time. We had strained relationship and also we had clashes,” he said.
It was very difficult to contain but somehow the diplomats after working very hard managed to do so, he said.
Former ambassador Mahmood Hasan, who also served in Bangladesh mission in India, said had the destination of the arms been India, it would have an impact on the relations between the two countries.
People who did this were apprehended and put on trial and it was the right thing to do, he said.