Dhaka, Dec 2 (Representative) The Bangladesh High Court on Sunday acquitted BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman and all other suspects in the case related to the August 21, 2004, grenade attack on an Awami League rally that killed 24 people. The bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain delivered the verdict on the appeal and the death references in the case on Sunday. Accordingly, the trial court’s death sentences for 19 people, life terms for 19 others, including Tarique, and different jail terms for 11 police and army personnel are quashed, bdnews24 reported. The High Court’s decision cleared all those who had appealed the trial court’s verdict, as well as those who did not. In its observations on the verdict, the court said that the 2011 chargesheet which had formed the basis for the trial was illegal. The attack on Aug 21, 2004, during the coalition government of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami, killed 24 people and targeted a rally led by Awami League President Sheikh Hasina on Bangabandhu Avenue. BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was the prime minister at the time, while Hasina was the leader of the opposition.
Fourteen years later, on Oct 10, 2018, Judge Shahed Nuruddin of Dhaka’s First Speedy Trial Tribunal delivered the initial verdict. Nineteen individuals, including former state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar and deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu in former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s government, were sentenced to death. BNP leader and Khaleda’s eldest son Tarique and her political secretary Haris Chowdhury were among the 19 others sentenced to life imprisonment, while 11 security officials faced varying prison terms. In the 2018 observations, the judge said the attack was carried out with the “support of state machinery” with the “malicious intent to render the [Awami League] leaderless”. “In politics, there will of course be a hundred disputes between the ruling party and the opposition party. But that doesn’t mean there can be an attempt to render the opposition leaderless. This is unacceptable.” After the High Court’s verdict on Sunday, lawyer and BNP leader Kayser Kamal said that Tarique’s name was added in the supplementary chargesheet in the case in a “politically motivated” manner. This is what the High Court has declared as illegal.
Over 37,000 pages of case materials, including statements, charge sheets, witness testimonies, and judgments, were reviewed. BNP’s de facto leader Tarique, who resides in the UK, was adjudged a fugitive by court and was unable to appeal. High Court proceedings in the case resumed in December 2022. The court concluded the hearing on the death references and appeals in the case on Nov 21 and set Sunday for the verdict. BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman described the verdict as the “inevitable triumph of truth over propaganda and conspiracy”. Separately, he was also acquitted in two sedition cases in Sylhet. A Sylhet court dismissed two sedition cases filed in 2014 against Tarique Rahman by two Chhatra League leaders over alleged derogatory remarks about Sheikh Mujibur Rahman made in the United Kingdom at an event of the BNP that year. In his FB post, Tarique Rahman called on the people of Bangladesh to “unite to end political vengeance and open a new chapter in the nation’s history, where no one’s life or family is destroyed because of political differences”. Meanwhile, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said the HC verdict has proved that all the cases filed against their party were politically motivated and conspiratorial. “Tarique Rahman was acquitted by the High Court after legally facing the charges brought against him,” he said in a statement from London.