The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Sunday said that the government was putting on the party all the blames for the August 21, 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally to hide real culprits.
The party's acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said that there had been too many questions regarding the grenade attack and the government implicated BNP leaders, including Tarique Rahman, the eldest son of the BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, in the case after seven years out of vengeance.
'We clearly say that Tarique Rahman was not involved in the grenade attack. He has been implicated in the case out of a political vengeance,' he said at an iftar party hosted by the Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu Mukti Parishad at Lalbagh in Dhaka.
Fakhrul said that out of political vengeance, the ruling party was trying to divert the investigation of the grenade attack.
He said that the government wanted to tarnish the image and dignity of the family of the late president Ziaur Rahman and Tarique Rahman had been implicated in this connection in the process.
Fakhrul said that an investigation team had been hired from the United Kingdom to find out the culprits behind the grenade attack when the BNP-led alliance was in power. But the then opposition Awami League cooperate with the investigation.
Brushing aside the allegation of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, regarding the BNP's involvement in the incident, he said the government was engaged in lodging cases against Tarique Rahman one after another so that he could not take part in the next general elections.
'False and motivated allegations are also levelled against the BNP chairperson,' he said.
At another news conference at night, the party's joint secretary general Rizvi Ahmed claimed that the investigation conducted during the tenure of the BNP-led alliance government was correct but the repeated investigations during the tenure of the Awami League-led government were politically motivated.
He said that the government in the name of investigation was trying to destroy the nationalist party politics. A certain quarter is coming up with fairy tales by implicating Tarique Rahman in the incident.
BNP leaders AZM Zahid, Ruhul Kuddus Talukdar Dulu, Masud Ahmed Talukdar and Sanaullah Mia, among others, attended the briefing.
Source : New Age
