Awami League (AL) advisory council member Suranjit Sengupta still shudders at the memory of August 21, 2004. On that day, the infamous grenade attack was carried out on the party’s members, including its chief and now Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, when they were out at a public rally. The plan was allegedly meticulously hatched by some leaders of the then BNP-Jamaat government. As many as 24 people were killed and 300 injured, but the attackers’ apparent prime target Sheikh Hasina survived it narrowly, mainly because some of her party leaders formed a human shield around her. Sengupta, a survivor of that attack, recounted those moments of horror for The Independent on Friday. “It was a ghastly scene. Some people had lost their limbs and were screaming in pain. Some were shouting for help… I cannot describe the agony in words,” recalled the former railway minister. “All of us fell unconscious after the attack. Some 22 leaders and activists of AL died on the spot, but our party president Sheikh Hasina survived as if by a miracle. It seemed as if God had saved her.”
The senior AL leader said it was a rare incident in the political history of the world that the state machinery was used to launch an attack on a rally of the main Opposition, especially the main Opposition leader. “The then BNP-Jamaat government cannot avoid responsibility for the attack. BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia’s elder son Tarique Rahman was its mastermind,” he alleged.
He claimed that the murders of August 15, 1975, and August 21, 2004, were bound by the same string. “Those who wanted to kill the spirit of Liberation War by assassinating Bangabandhu and his family in 1975 also attacked Sheikh Hasina’s rally in 2004 to finish what they could not in 1975,” he added.
About the ongoing trial proceedings of the August 21 grenade attack case, Sengupta, chief of the parliamentary standing committee of the law ministry, said they have been keeping track of the trial at every step. “The case is making progress now. The law minister has assured us that it will be completed by this year-end,” he said.
Predicting a “historic verdict” in the case, the senior parliamentarian said it would establish that the main objective of politics is peace, not violence. “No government high-up would ever dare to get involved in political killings,” he added.
AL organising secretary AFM Bahauddin Nasim, another witness to the August 21 grenade attack, also blamed Tarique Rahman for masterminding the carnage. “The blueprint of the attack was hatched in the then Hawa Bhaban under Rahman’s leadership. So, he cannot avoid responsibility. He will have to pay for the attack very soon,” he claimed.
Another survivor of the attack, AL leader and lawmaker Nazrul Islam Babu, said, “I don’t want to remember those painful scenes. I cannot describe those terrible scenes in words. I want exemplary punishment for those who were involved in such bloodshed.”
Talking to reporters at a city programme, law minister Anisul Huq said yesterday, “The August 21 grenade attack trial is now at the final stage. I hope the verdict is delivered soon.” In another city programme, AL presidium member and health minister Mohammad Nasim alleged that Rahman and his collaborators had hatched the plan under the patronage of the then BNP-Jamaat government.
The CID submitted a charge-sheet on June 11, 2008, accusing 22 people, including HuJI leader Mufti Hannan and former deputy minister of the BNP government, Abdus Salam Pintu, of the attack. The charge-sheet also hinted at the involvement of some top government and security officials in the plot.
After the AL came to power, the prosecution filed a petition in court on June 22, 2009, for further investigation into the case to identify the suppliers of the Arges grenades and the sources of funding. The court on August 3, 2009, ordered a further investigation. A new CID official was then assigned to do the job. The CID submitted the supplementary charge-sheet in July 2011.
According to the supplementary charge-sheet, the attack was an outcome of a collaboration between the militant outfit HuJI, a section of influential BNP and Jamaat leaders, and a section of senior officials of the home ministry, police, Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), National Security Intelligence (NSI), and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
According to the supplementary charge-sheet, Lutfozzaman Babar, then state minister for home affairs, Harris Chowdhury, political secretary to then prime minister Khaleda Zia, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami and the then social welfare minister, NSI director general Brig. Gen. Abdur Rahim, and DGFI director Brig. Gen. Rezzaqul Haider Chowdhury masterminded the attack. It also claimed the involvement of Tarique Rahman.