Aug 21 Grenade Attack
Accused BNP leaders are innocent: Rizvi
A senior BNP leader yesterday claimed innocence of the party leaders accused in the August 21 grenade attack case and alleged that Awami League (AL) itself had been involved in the incident.
He also said, “The BNP-led four-party alliance government had made the highest effort to identify the attackers in a bid to bring them to trial."
"Local and foreign intelligence agencies were involved in conducting the investigation but the Awami League did not cooperate,” BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told a press briefing at the party headquarters in the capital.
The briefing was organised to counter the statements of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam who, at a discussion at Bangabandhu Avenue on Tuesday, implicated BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and Senior Vice Chairman Tarique Rahman in the 2004 attack, which had killed 24 AL leaders.
Rizvi said the military backed caretaker government had tried its best to find BNP leaders' involvement in the incident to no avail.
“But the present Awami League government has submitted a supplementary charge sheet accusing the BNP leaders, including Tarique Rahman, which is nothing but a part of a conspiracy against BNP leadership.”
Asked why the then BNP government tried to implicate one Joj Mia in the attack, Rizvi said it was not a drama.
In 2004, police held a hapless Joj Mia from Noakhali responsible for the attack. The media later exposed that police were paying his needy family monthly in exchange for his posing as an attacker.
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