In the infamous August 21, 2004, grenade attack case, which resulted in the deaths of 24 people during an Awami League rally, the High Court acquitted BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman and all other suspects.
A bench of Justice AKM Asaduzzaman and Justice Syed Enayet Hossain delivered the verdict on Sunday, quashing the death sentences of 19 individuals, including former state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar and deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu. The verdict also overturned the life sentences of 19 others, including Tarique Rahman, and the prison terms of 11 police and army personnel.
It cleared both those who appealed the trial court’s verdict and those who didn’t. The court observed that the 2011 chargesheet, which was central to the trial, was illegal.
On August 21, 2004, during the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami coalition government, Sheikh Hasina, the opposition leader at the time, led an Awami League rally that was the target of the attack. The court noted that state machinery was believed to have carried out the bombing with the aim of eliminating Hasina.
Judge Shahed Nuruddin of Dhaka’s First Speedy Trial Tribunal delivered the original verdict in October 2018, which sentenced 19 people, including high-ranking BNP officials, to death. Tarique Rahman and political secretary Haris Chowdhury received life sentences, while 11 security personnel faced various prison terms.
Following the High Court ruling, BNP lawyer and leader Kayser Kamal asserted that Tarique Rahman’s inclusion in the chargesheet was politically motivated, a claim the court’s ruling supported.
The case had been under review since November 2018, with over 37,000 pages of case materials scrutinized. Declared a fugitive, Tarique currently resides in the UK and did not participate in the appeal process. The court concluded its review of the death references and appeals in November 2022, with the final verdict delivered on Sunday.
