Investigation and trial of 21 August attack completely staged: Mirza Fakhrul

Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has dubbed the investigation and trial of 21 August grenade attack as a scripted drama of Awami League.

The names of Tarique Rahman and other BNP leaders have been included in the incident out of political vengeance, he claimed.

Mirza Fakhrul was addressing a media conference at the party’s headquarters in Naya Paltan in capital on Monday afternoon. Earlier, he attended a joint meeting to finalise the programmes to be organised marking 44th founding anniversary of the BNP.

A newsperson asked the BNP leader that the top leaders of Awami League have been mentioning names of several top BNP leaders and demanding to complete the trial of 21 August incident. What is BNP’s stand on this?

Mirza Fakhrul said they have already completed the trial process. The whole thing is a scripted drama. They shifted the meeting place and did not inform the people concerned about it.

The BNP leader also said the name of Tarique Rahman was not in the FIR; in fact his name did not appear in three FIRs. Later, a retired official, Kahar Akand, who sought nomination from Awami League, was brought back to the job and made the investigation officer of the case. He included Tarique Rahman’s name.

Claiming that the name of Tarique Rahman was not taken in any stage of the investigation, Mirza Fakhrul said, only Mufti Hannan was forced to mention his name. Later, he had given an affidavit declining the earlier statement but that (the affidavit) was not accepted. He was not even given any further chance to appear in court, he was hastily executed in another case.

Mentioning that the 21 August incident is one of the most abominable incidents in the politics of Bangladesh, the BNP secretary general said, “We condemn the 21 August incident.”

He said an attempt is on to take political mileage by adding names of political leaders without any reason. None of Tarique Rahman, Abdus Salam Pintu and Lutfozzaman Babar was involved with the incident; their names have been included only because of political consideration.

He alleged that this was done without proper investment into the incident.
Another journalist drew Mirza Fakhrul’s attention to a media report that says about India’s message to the US, siding with the government of Sheikh Hasina, and asked whether BNP has been trying to inform India its stand.

In response, Mirza Fakhrul said, “We are not so politically bankrupt. Awami League does not have politics, they cannot go to the people; they have been trying to gain benefit saying all this. We state clearly that we are with the people. There is no source of what is being said. Neither the government of India, nor the US said India has sent such a letter. The people want an election under a non-party neutral caretaker government. All of these are being done just to create a deviation.”