Charges were pressed on Sunday against 11 more people, including former industries minister Motiur Rahman Nizami and former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar, in two cases of the sensational 10-truck arms haul in Chittagong.
Senior assistant superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department Mohammed Moniruzzaman, also the investigation officer of the cases, submitted supplementary charge sheets in the two cases to the Chittagong chief metropolitan magistrate's court.
The investigation officer pressed charges against Nizami, also the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami amir who is now detained, Babar, former National Security Intelligence directors general retired major general Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury and retired brigadier general Abdur Rahim, former additional secretary of the industries ministry Nurul Amin, former NSI directors retired wing commander Shahabuddin Ahmed and retired major Liakat Hossain, former NSI field officer Akbar Hossain, former Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited managing director Mohshin Talukder, its former general manager AKM Enamul Haque and United Liberation Front of Assom leader Paresh Barua.
Nurul Amin and Paresh Barua are still on the run and nine others are detained in prisons, the charge sheets said.
The charges were pressed against the 11 in both the cases in addition to the people against whom charges were pressed earlier.
In 2004, the investigators pressed charges against 45 in a case filed for smuggling the firearms and ammunition and 43 in the other case filed under the arms act.
The arms and ammunitions were transported from China for ULFA with the connivance of the accused, Moniruzzaman told reporters after the submission of two supplementary charge sheets.
He, however, said that the investigation had failed to identify the ship that carried the arms and ammunitions to Chittagong.
The charge sheets were the third in the arms case and the second in the smuggling case.
On April 2, 2004, the police seized 4,930 types of sophisticated firearms, 27,020 grenades, 840 rocket launchers, 300 rockets, 2,000 grenade launching tubes, 6,392 magazines and 11,40,520 bullets when they were being loaded on to 10 trucks from two engine boats at the jetty of the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited.
This is the biggest-ever arms haul in the country.
Ahadur Rahman, the then Karnaphuli police officer-in-charge, filed the two cases on April 3, 2004. He was also the first investigation officer in the cases.
The cases were transferred to the CID 22 days after the filing of the cases and the CID's Chittagong zone assistant superintendent Kabir Uddin was then appointed the second investigation officer, who submitted the first charge sheet on June 11, 2004 in the case filed under the arms act.
The court, however, directed further investigation in the case and the CID's assistant superintendent Nawshad Ali submitted a supplementary charge sheet, the second in the arms case, pressing charges against 43 people on August 24, 2004.
Nawshad also submitted the first charge sheet in the case filed under smuggling act pressing charges against 45 people in November 2004.
Chittagong metropolitan sessions judge ANM Bashirullan, however, on February 12, 2008, during the immediate-past military-controlled interim regime, ordered further investigation in the two cases on an appeal preferred by the then public prosecutor Ahsanul Haque Hena.
The CID's assistant superintendent Ismail Hossain carried out the further investigation as the fourth investigation officer of the cases but failed to submit the reports even after deadline extension for six times.
On January 18, 2009, a Chittagong court ordered to replace Ismail Hossain on an appeal by the state lawyer and ASP Moniruzzaman was appointed the fifth investigation officer.
After the Awami League had assumed office on January 6, 2009, the course of investigation in the cases took a fresh turn with the arrest of former NSI chiefs.
The court, in its February 12, 2008 order, directed investigation of seven specific points in the further investigation.
Moniruzzaman told reporters that the weapons had been bought from Noriho Company of China for ULFA.
He said that the investigation could resolve all the issues, ordered by the court, but the identification of the ship that carried the arms and ammunition.
He, however, said that the investigation could not reveal the route that the smugglers intended to use to take the arms to Assam.
With the new 11, the number of accused people stood at 50 in the case filed under the arms act and 52 in the case filed under the smuggling act, court sources said, adding that four people, named earlier in the charge sheets in both the cases, had died by this time.
In both the cases, 256 people were named as prosecution witnesses, the sources said.
A section of lawyers, after the submission of the charge sheets, said that the implication of Nizami, Babar and former army officers posted to the National Security Intelligence was motivated.
Source : New Age
