HC acquits Tarique, Babar, all others in Aug 21 grenade attack case
The High Court on Sunday acquitted all 49 individuals convicted in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack cases, declaring the trial court’s 2018 verdict illegal.
The bench, comprising Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain, delivered the landmark judgment after completing hearings on November 21.
The trial court had sentenced 19 individuals to death, including former BNP state minister Lutfozzaman Babar and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu.
Another 19, including Bangladesh Nationalist Party acting chairperson Tarique Rahman, were sentenced to life-term imprisonment.
Eleven police officers, including former inspectors general Ashraful Huda, Shahudul Haque, and Khoda Baksh Chowdhury, received varying prison terms for allegedly obstructing the investigation.
The attack, carried out during an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka, killed 24 people and injured scores more.
The then opposition leader, Sheikh Hasina, narrowly escaped but suffered permanent hearing damage.
Two cases — one for murder and another under the Explosive Substances Act — were filed the following day, on August 22, 2004.
Senior defense lawyer SM Shajahan argued for the acquittal of all 49 convicts, citing irregularities in the trial process.
He contended that the supplementary charge sheet submitted in 2011, during the Awami League regime, lacked legal validity.
This second charge sheet implicated 30 new individuals, including Tarique Rahman, Lutfozzaman Babar, and Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, who was executed in 2015 for war crimes.
Shajahan also challenged the admissibility of a second confessional statement attributed to Mufti Abdul Hannan, the executed leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad. He argued that multiple confessions in the same case are legally impermissible.
Hannan, initially named in the 2008 charge sheet, was executed in 2017 for a separate grenade attack on former British envoy Anwar Choudhury.
New Age
