The verdict of the case of bomb attacks on the festival of Pahela Baishak at Ramna Batamul in the capital in 2001 is set to be pronounced on Monday.
The Second Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge’s Court, Dhaka will hand down the verdict around 12pm, thirteen years after the bomb blasts.
On May 28, the court fixed June 16 to deliver verdict in the murder case filed in connection with the 2001 Ramna Batamul bomb blasts.
Judge Ruhul Amin of the court set the date after completion of closing arguments from both defence and prosecution sides.
During the traditional celebrations of the Bangla New Year, 1408 (April 14, 2001) at the Ramna Batamul, several blasts killed 10 people and injured around 50 others.
Two cases -- one for the killing and the other under the explosive substances act -- were filed with Ramna Police Station in connection with the incident.
Mufti Abdul Hannan, chief of banned militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (Huji), and its 13 other leaders and activists are accused in the case.
It took the investigators over seven years to trace Huji links with the attack.
The Criminal Investigation Department on December 30, 2008 pressed charges against the 14 accused in both the cases.
The accused are: Mufti Abdul Hannan, Mufti Shafiqur Rahman, Maulana Yahiya, Mufti Abdul Hye, Maulana Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh Farid, Maulana Abu Bakar alias Selim Hawlader, Maulana Mohammad Tajuddin, Maulana Abdul Hannan Sabbir, Arif Hasan Suman, Maulana Akbar Hossain alias Helaluddin, Maulana Abu Taher, Maulana Abdur Rouf, Hafez Jahangir Alam Badar, and Shahadat Ullah alias Jewel.
Of them, Hannan, Suman, Jewel, Abu Taher, Sheikh Farid, Sabbir, Rouf, Yahiya and Akbar are behind bars, while the others are still at large.
Mufti Hannan and Akbar in confessional statements before magistrates told that they along with other Huji members had carried out the bomb attack as celebrating the Bangla New Year is anti-Islamic.
