Appeal to be filed seeking highest punishment of Tarique: Quader

Ruling Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader on Wednesday said the ‘mastermind’ of 21st August grenade attack Tarique Rahman will be exposed for the highest punishment.

“We’ve the opportunity to go to the higher court and we will fight for the highest punishment of Tarique Rahman,” he told newsmen after placing wreaths at the memorial erected on the spot of the grenade attacks at Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital paying homage to the martyrs.

Quader, also the road transport and bridges minister, said the then Harkat-ul-Jihad leader Mufti Hannan in his statement said that they carried out the attack after getting order from Tarique Rahman.

“All of the masterminds of the killing would be exposed to trial,” he added.

The AL leader further said the gruesome grenade attack, on 21 August 2004, was launched on an anti-terrorism public rally of the Awami League at Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital during the rule of BNP-Jamaat alliance to eliminate the party top leader and the then opposition leader in Jatiya Sangsad and now prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

“For blessings of the Almighty, our leader and Bangabandhu’s daughter prime minister Sheikh Hasina escaped the carnage,” Quader said, adding the trial of the masterminds of the heinous attack will be held in this soil and the people of the country are waiting to see it.

He said, “The promise of the day is that we will face terrorism and fundamentalism in the country’s politics under the dynamic leadership of prime minister Sheikh Hasina.”