Try Khaleda for Aug 21 grenade attack on Hasina: Nojib Ahmed

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Personal Officer Nojib Ahmed has demanded that former primier Khaleda Zia be also brought to justice for the brazen attack aimed to eliminate her political rival Hasina.

Nojib was among those who formed a human shield to save Hasina, then the opposition leader and the prime target of the grisly attack on Aug 21, 2004.

A Dhaka tribunal on Wednesday sentenced the then state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar and 18 others to death.

BNP Senior Vice Chairman and party chief Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman is among 19 sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the attack.

Tarique, who has been in London since 2008, is acting as the party chief as his mother is in jail after her conviction in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case in February.

Homegrown militants in connivance with their foreign peers launched the attack, helped by the then state machinery, the judge said in his verdict on Wednesday.

“No one is above the law, no matter if he or she is prime minister or president. The law takes its own course,” Nojib said after the delivery of the verdict in grenade attack case.  

“My demand is that Khaleda and the ministers of her government be brought to justice (for the grenade attack),” he added.

Some of the injured victims of the attack expressed dissatisfaction over the verdict as Tarique dodged the hangman’s noose.

One of them also demanded Khaleda’s trial for the attack.

Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader said Khaleda cannot duck responsibilities for the attack as she was in-charge of the home ministry at the time.