Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif has said that the recent conviction of senior BNP leaders in the August 21 grenade attack case proved that BNP is a terrorist organization.
“It was proved at the court that the senior leadership of BNP was involved with the monstrous August 21 grenade attack and they were convicted accordingly,” he said on Thursday, reports BSS.
“A party of such isolated and opportunist leaders cannot do any good for the people and it will not play any role in the country’s development as well,” he added.
The ruling party leader made the remarks while talking to reporters before attending a discussion organized by the district administration in Kushtia in the afternoon.
Hani also said: “BNP will have to pay a hefty price if they again try to carry out sabotages, kill people by exploding petrol bombs and destroy the country’s assets like they did in the past.”
A Dhaka court on October 10 sentenced 19 people to death, including the then BNP-led government’s state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, in the cases filed over the grenade attack on an Awami League rally 14 years after the incident.
Tarique Rahman, exiled eldest son of jailed BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and the party’s current acting chairman, was also sentenced to life imprisonment, along with Khaleda’s former political adviser Haris Chowdhury and 17 others.
The court also issued prison sentences of various lengths to 11 former government officials who were revealed to have been part of the plot to annihilate the top leaders of the then main opposition Awami League.
The August 21, 2004 atrocity had left killed 24 people and injured hundreds, including the prime target, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
BNP, however, outright rejected the verdict, saying it was politically-motivated and given at the “behest of the incumbent Awami League-led government.”
