Will seek death penalty for Tarique Rahman: Quader
Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader yesterday said they will go to the High Court seeking capital punishment for acting BNP chairman Tarique Rahman, terming him the “mastermind of August 21 grenade attack”.
We’ll surely go to the High Court, as there’s a scope to carry out a legal fight for the maximum punishment of Tarique Rahman,” he said while talking to reporters after placing wreaths at a makeshift altar in front of the party’s central office at Bangabandhu Avenue, marking the 15th anniversary of the gruesome attack.
Quader, also the Road Transport and Bridges Minister, further said, “Harkat-ul-Jihad leader Mufti Hannan in his confessional statement said they made the attack at the behest of Tarique Rahman. So, the mastermind of the killing must be awarded the highest punishment.”
The minister said the BNP-Jamaat alliance regime carried out the grenade attack on Awami League’s anti-terrorism rally on this day in 2004, and the then-opposition leader Sheikh Hasina was their prime target.
He said two incidents in history -- August 15 assassination of Bangabandhu and most of his family members, and the August 21 grenade attack -- are inseparable as those were carried out with the same motive.
Quader also said the working relationship that needs to remain between the government and the opposition party was finished forever through the bomb blasts. “It won’t be possible for us to forget the pain of the incident.”
Even after that, he said, Awami League tried to normalise relations with BNP as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina invited Khaleda Zia to Gono Bhaban before the January 5 national election in 2014.
“Our leader also went to Khaleda Zia’s office to console her following her son’s death. People know they misbehaved with the prime minister. On that day, BNP shut the door for dialogue in Bangladeshi politics, by closing the door on the face of the prime minister.”
At least 24 leaders and activists, including Awami League women affairs secretary and late President Zillur Rahman’s wife Ivy Rahman, were killed and 300 others injured in the grenade attack on August 21, 2004.
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