Bangladesh court upholds acquittal of 2004 grenade attack accused

Dhaka: A Bangladesh court on Thursday upheld the High Court’s ruling that acquitted all 49 accused, including Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman and former state minister Lutfozzaman Babar, in the August 2004 grenade attack case in Dhaka, local media reported.

The attack, which killed and injured hundreds, is considered one of the most horrific incidents of political violence in the country’s history.

The verdict was announced by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court’s six-member bench led by Chief Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed, dismissing the appeal filed by the state challenging the 2024 HC verdict.

The grenade attack on August 21, 2004, carried out during the coalition government of BNP and radical Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, targeted an Awami League rally led by then leader of opposition Sheikh Hasina at Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka.

Earlier in December 2024, the HC acquitted all 49 accused, overturning trial court verdicts that had convicted and sentenced them for the grenade attack.

The HC’s December verdict sparked outrage on social media, as many expressed shock over the acquittal of all the accused, Bangladesh’s leading daily bdnews24 reported.

In 2018, the trial court sentenced 19 people, including Babar, to death, while Tarique and 18 others were given life imprisonment.

Additionally, eleven police and Army personnel were handed down varying prison terms.

According to the Awami League, the attack was orchestrated under the blueprint of Tarique, son of then Prime Minister and BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, along with war criminals and Jamaat leaders Matiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, then State Minister for Home Affairs Babar, BNP leader and former Deputy Minister Abdus Salam Pintu, militant leader Mufti Hannan, and other anti-Liberation reactionary groups.

The party mentioned that during the attack, several military grade grenades were hurled at its rally, in which 24 leaders and activists of the Awami League and its associate bodies were killed, and more than 500 were permanently crippled.

The party alleged that the aim was to assassinate the Awami League President Hasina, and to “destroy” Bangladesh’s independence, democracy, and the “spirit” of the 1971 Liberation War.

Highlighting that more than 500 leaders, activists, and journalists from print and electronic media were injured by a grenade splinter, the party stated that several injured Awami League leaders, activists, and supporters still endure unbearable suffering from those injuries.

IANS