Sensational information revealed by Huji leaders Mufti Abdul Hannan and Abdus Salam and Pakistani militant leader Majid Butt first gave the final investigators a major headway into the plot of the grenade attack on an Awami League rally 10 years ago.
Various sources and documents related to the attack – carried out by banned Islamist militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji) – suggest that the confessional statements given by the three terrorists helped investigators in uncovering a chilling government-sponsored conspiracy.
According to the Criminal Investigation Department of police, the attack was a result of a collaboration among Huji members; influential leaders and ministers of the then ruling BNP-Jamaat alliance; some high officials of the Prime Minister’s Office, the ministries of home and defense, police, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) and the National Security Intelligence (NSI).
Investigation has also found the involvement of BNP Chairperson and the then prime minister Khaleda Zia’s eldest son Tarique Rahman and nephew Saiful Islam Duke, a former officer of the navy.
Hawa Bhaban – Tarique’s office that was also known as the alternate centre of power during the 2001-06 BNP-Jamaat rule – was used for holding meetings where the plot was finalised.
A few days before the attack, Huji leaders met Tarique and got his green signal for carrying out the blasts, investigators have found.
Lutfuzzaman Babar, then state minister for home, Harris Chowdhury, political secretary to then prime minister Khaleda Zia, convicted war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed, secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami, Brig Gen Abdur Rahim, then NSI director general, and Brig Gen Rezzaqul Haider Chowdhury, then DGFI director, were present in that meeting.
Hannan, Salam and Butt are now in jail. They are three of the 52 accused in the two grenade attack cases – one murder and the other explosives. All three have given confessional statements.
A highly placed source involved with the investigation in the cases, which are now under trial in a Dhaka court, said Hannan provided the first opening into the mystery; Salam and Butt’s statements later corroborated his statement.
It was a plot to kill Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina, then the opposition leader and now prime minister. On that day, she was addressing a rally at Bangabandhu Avenue, condemning the other terror attacks that were carried out during Khaleda Zia’s rule.
Hasina narrowly escaped death at the expense of ear injuries caused by the explosion of nearly a dozen Arges grenades – an exclusive military weapon. When she was being taken away from the area in her Mercedes Benz, several gunshots were fired at her vehicle but no harm could be done because it was bulletproof.
Sheikh Hasina survived, but the attack killed 24 Awami League leaders and activists, including veteran central leader Ivy Rahman, wife of late President Zillur Rahman, and maimed more than 300.
During BNP-Jamaat’s rule that ended in October 2006 and even when president Iajuddin Ahmed, loyal to the BNP, was the chief of the caretaker government until January 2007, the mystery behind the attack remained in the dark as the then administration tried to hide facts and destroy evidence.
The BNP-Jamaat government tried its best to divert investigation by cooking up the much-talked-about story involving Joj Mia.
Moreover, Khaleda Zia and many BNP leaders went on to blame the Awami League for the attack saying it was carried out to put the country and the government in trouble.
During the two-year regime of the military-backed caretaker government that followed president Iajuddin’s brief but controversial rule, the investigation took a new turn.
The CID submitted the first charge sheet in the cases revealing that Huji carried out the grenade attack and BNP’s deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu was involved with the conspiracy.
Despite the revelation, the investigation was incomplete because many significant questions remained unanswered.
Mufti Hannan told investigators that the then administration assured him about the supply of grenades. That charge sheet did not elucidate from whom and how the attackers got the administrative support.
In 2009, after the Awami League-led alliance came to power and Sheikh Hasina became the prime minister, following a prosecution appeal, a Dhaka court ordered for further investigation into the attack.
CID’s senior investigator Abdul Kahar Akand, who also investigated the Bangabandhu murder case, was assigned to unearth the real mystery behind the attack.
He submitted a supplementary chargesheet in 2011 that revealed the conspiracy and the source of the grenades, and shed light on some other unaddressed issues.
According to the case documents, in August 2006, Huji operative Shahedul Alam Bipul, arrested in a different case, first tipped off the investigators about Mufti Hannan’s involvement with the August 21 attack when he was interrogated by the Task Force Intelligence (TFI) in August 2006.
Mufti Hannan was already in custody. He was arrested in October 2005 – more than a year after the attack. Although Hannan admitted his involvement in some other bomb and grenade attacks, at that time said he had nothing to do with the August 21 attack.
Based on clues given by Bipul, Hannan was interrogated again. That team of interrogators included the then RAB chief Abdul Aziz Sarker, RAB intelligence director Col Gulzar Uddin Ahmed – who was killed in the 2009 BDR mutiny – and former CID officials Munshi Atiqur Rahman and Ruhul Amin.
According to Aziz Sarker’s statement given to Akand, Hannan had eventually confessed his direct involvement with the attack and exposed the role of some BNP leaders in the conspiracy.
Aziz also told Akand that the then BNP state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar had got annoyed when Aziz had informed him about the disclosures that Hannan made.
Based on the information given by Hannan, on November 2, 2009, the other Huji leader Abdus Salam was arrested. Pakistan-based militant organisation Laskar-e-Taiba leader Yusuf Butt alias Majid Butt was already in jail since January 2009 in connection with a firearms possession case.
Later, Butt was shown arrested in the August 21 grenade attack cases and Kahar obtained statements from Salam and Butt that not only corroborated Hannan’s statement but also shed light on many other things, said a source.
Pakistani terrorist Butt supplied the Arges grenade, said the source, adding that fugitive accused Moulana Tajuddin had been very closely involved with the Pakistani terrorist and the Islamist militant groups.
Tajuddin assured Hannan about the supply of grenades and the administration ensured him all out support for carrying out the attack.
Tajuddin is the brother of former BNP deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, another accused in the cases.
In 2006, former state minister for home Babar and Khaleda’s nephew Duke, in collaboration with some DGFI officials, arranged a safe escape passage for Tajuddin after Hannan made the key disclosures.
Maj Gen (retd) Sadik Hasan Rumi, who was the director general of DGFI in 2004, also gave a statement to Akand.
According to Maj Gen Rumi, some DGFI officials were told by Babar and Duke that Tajuddin was sent abroad upon the then prime minister Khaleda Zia’s directives.
Tajuddin expressed his desire to go to Pakistan and some some DGFI officials had arranged everything, including a passport under a different name.
These are some of the glimpses that the last CID investigator Abdul Kahar Akand has unearthed. They show that it was a government-sponsored terrorist attack aimed at killing Sheikh Hasina, BNP’s main political rival.
The findings also exposed Khaleda Zia and her government, who tried to destroy evidence and divert the investigation by hiding facts.
When this correspondent contacted Akand, he did not want to talk about the challenges, hurdles and limitations he faced while investigating a political crime of this magnitude, because the cases were still under trial.
The only thing he told the Dhaka Tribune was: “Many statements helped me in the investigation, but those given by these three [Hannan, Salam and Butt] played the most significant role; they gave us a headway into the conspiracy.”
