Multiple but unsatisfactory investigations into the chilling recovery of 10-truckloads of sophisticated military arms and ammunition in Chittagong in 2004 delayed justice in the incident, perceived to be the largest ever smuggling of weapons that raised concerns about the country’s security issue.
The BNP-Jamaat-led four-party alliance government was in power during the smuggling attempt. It was apparently very unusual that the investigation was done only in 70 days since the seizure of the arms on April 2 and the trial began the following year at a trial court in Chittagong.
However, it took almost 10 years to end the trial and get a verdict date, scheduled for tomorrow, as the police investigations done hurriedly during the then government were found flawed.
The second investigation officer of the case, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) official AKM Kabiruddin, submitted charge sheet in the arms case filed in connection with the smuggling accusing more than three dozen people on June 11, 2004.
As Kabiruddin was transferred, another CID official Mir Nawsher Ali in August the same year submitted charge sheet in the smuggling case accusing 45 people. Though there was small difference in the number of accused, findings in the two cases were identical.
The court framed the charges against the accused in April 2005 and the trial began in June based on the findings of the first charge sheet. The trial was in progress when the four-party alliance government left office in October 2006.
During the military-backed caretaker regime in 2007-08, the court ordered further investigation after the prosecution had expressed dissatisfaction over the investigation claiming it “incomplete.”
Law enforcers 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 as they were being loaded on to 10 trucks from two engine-boats at the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL) jetty.
When the court ordered further investigation in 2008, the judge observed that the two investigation officers who submitted charge sheets in 2004 had failed to unearth seven major issues related to the smuggling episode.
The issues were: who brought the arms from abroad, for which country the arms were brought; to whom those arms were going to be delivered; by which vessel the arms were brought to Bangladesh from abroad; how the CUFL jetty was used for unloading the arms though it was reserved only for fertiliser export; how two police sergeants took away two arms from the jetty (later recovered by RAB) and in which country arms were manufactured.
The court also observed that the two investigation officers had not investigated deep into the case.
The trial proceedings had been stalled and a new investigation officer assigned in 2008 for the further investigation as the court directed to appoint an efficient and honest IO. During the regime of Sheikh Hasina-led past government, the IO was changed as per a court order since the previous one was not much efficient.
The fifth and last IO, Moniruzzaman Chowdhury, submitted supplementary charge sheets in the cases implicating 11 more people including some bigwigs. The number of accused in the arms case went up to 50 and in the smuggling case 52.
The last IO came up with fresh chilling revelations including the alleged involvement of some former ministers, top intelligence officials, bureaucrats and a leader of an Indian separatist group with the smuggling.
The question naturally rises why the two IOs could not unearth answers to many significant issues involving the scaring smuggling.
“The previous IOs could not proceed on the right path of investigation. They had their failures. They could not show their efficiency,” Moniruzzaman Chowdhury, the IO, observed.
But a leading security analyst, Maj Gen (retd) Abdur Rashid, thinks the investigation done during the BNP-Jamaat regime was incomplete because the administration had a motive to “close the cases keeping the real things undiscovered.”
Rashid told the Dhaka Tribune: “It was not merely an ordinary arms smuggling. It was happening with a purpose of disrupting stability in the neighbouring country for the interest of few other countries using the land of Bangladesh.”
“So, the arms smuggling was taking place with the involvement of some politicians of the ruling parties and some officials of government agencies,” Rashid said. “Naturally, there could have been attempts to conduct investigation avoiding those people when those smuggled arms were caught red handed.”
He suggests that the smuggling took place with the knowledge of people in the then administration. When the question of involvement of government, intelligence officials and people in security forces comes forward, this may put the image of the country in controversy.
“It is a dangerous allegation against a government,” Rashid said, “and sensitive too, undoubtedly.”
Possibly, the former investigators conducted the “incomplete investigation” to hide these issues, he observed. The involvements of those have been discovered in further investigation.
IO Moniruzzaman said he could not unearth only one of the seven issues. He failed to identity the ship that had brought the arms to the outer anchorage of the Chittagong port from abroad. Besides this, the weapons which the two sergeants had found were not in the consignment.
He found answers of rest of the questions. The arms were being brought for the separatist Ulfa which had financed the smuggling. The ULFA was formed in late ‘70s to begin an armed rebellion for independence of Assam, a north-eastern state of India. The Indian government, considering it as a terrorist organisation, banned the Ulfa in 1990.
An Indian English daily published an interview of detained Ulfa Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa in 2011 where the leader said they had used Bangladesh as a corridor to smuggle the firearms into Assam. For the first time, Rajkhowa admitted that the Pakistani fundamentalists had long been backing them.
The smuggled military weapons were manufactured by a Chinese company in Beijing named Norinco.
According to the company’s website, China North Industries Corporation (Norinco) is a pioneer and leader of Chinese military trade, and an important team to implement China’s Going Global strategy.
“In pursuit of customer-orientation and the demand of revolution in present military affairs for equipment and technologies, Norinco develops high-tech defence products for international military trade market and provides systematic solutions in accordance with customer demand,” says the company website.
Jane’s Intelligence Review (JIR), a leading global defence magazine, in an investigative report on the Chittagong arms haul said the arms and ammunition had been shipped from Hong Kong, and then more weapons were added to the consignment in Singapore before being brought to Bangladesh.
Hafizur Rahman Hafiz, an arms smuggler in Chittagong, is the prime accused in the charge sheet submitted after further investigation. But the alleged involvement of 11 bigwigs and Ulfa leader has created much hype about the haul.
The 11 accused are: BNP’s former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar; Jamaat-e-Islami chief and former Industry minister Motiur Rahman Nizami; Ulfa leader Paresh Barua; former director general of National Security Intelligence (NSI) Brig Gen (retd) Abdur Rahim; then director of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) Maj Gen (retd) Rezzaqul Haider Chowdhury who was later appointed as the DG of NSI; former NSI director wing commander (retd) Shahab Uddin; former deputy director of NSI Maj (retd) Liakat Hossain; former NSI field officer Akbar Hossain Khan; former additional secretary of the industries ministry Nurul Amin, ex-CUFL managing director Mohsin Talukder and former CUFL general manager (admin) Enamul Hoque.
Except for the Ulfa leader and Nurul Amin, the rest are in prison.
