Aug 21 Grenade Attack

Huji adviser 'detained'

Ex-police chief Qaiyum quizzed

31 December 2009, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent

A law enforcement agency arrested Kazi Azizul Haque, an organiser of Huji leaders, from Sylhet yesterday. Although any agency did not officially confirm the arrest, different other sources said members of an agency picked up Azizul from a place in Sylhet. The sources however could not give details about the arrest. In mid 2008, founders of Harkatul Jihad al Islami (Huji) formed Islamic Democratic Party (IDP) led by Abdus Salam who has already been arrested and made a confessional statement about his involvement with the August 21, 2004 attack on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue. Azizul is the adviser of IDP. He, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury and Dr Richard L Benkin, an American citizen played a vital role to form IDP. Meanwhile, the Criminal Investigation Department yesterday questioned the then IGP Mohammad Abdul Qaiyum regarding the grenade attacks on the Awami League rally. CID sources said they quizzed the former secretary and IGP as part of questioning law enforcement and intelligence agency officials who held various key positions at that time. When contacted, investigation officer of the grenade attack case CID's Additional Special Superintendent Abdul Kahar Akand and Special Superintendent of CID-Metro Meer Shahidul Islam declined to disclose any detail of the quizzing and its findings for the sake of investigation. The probe into the sensational grenade attack, which attempted to assassinate the then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, got a significant turn when investigators arrested and quizzed former BNP state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar. The CID has so far interrogated Maj Gen (retd) Sadiq Hasan Rumi, former director general of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, Maj Gen (retd) ATM Amin who was DGFI director at the time of the carnage, Abdul Aziz Sarker, former DG of Rapid Action Battalion, and Superintendent of Police Obaidur Rahman who was then the deputy commissioner (DC-East Zone) and in-charge of the security of the rally.