The 2004 attack on an Awami League rally to eliminate the-then opposition leader and now Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was planned in Pakistan-administered Kashmir by militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen (HM).
With help from political allies as well as ideological allies, like Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami (HuJI, B), in Bangladesh, it planed the attack and implemented it.
Twenty-four people were killed in the attack on Aug 21 that year at Dhaka’s Bangabandhu Avenue. If the attack was fully successful, most of the Awami League policymakers, including the party chief, would have died.
Formed in 1989, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) is considered the largest guerrilla organisation active in Indian-administered Kashmir.
It is also considered to be the only militant group led by and composed of mostly ethnic Kashmiris from Indian-administered Kashmir.
It’s operative Pakistani national Abdul Majed Butt alias Yusuf Butt is one of the 52 people charged in the two cases over the attack — one over the killings and the other under the Explosives Act.
Butt, who speaks fluent Bangla and even had married a Bangladeshi woman, was sent to Bangladesh in 2000 to build a safe home in Bangladesh for Pakistani terrorists.
He was also responsible for supplying arms and ammunitions to Indian-administered Kashmir through Bangladesh.
The grenades used in the attack on the Awami League rally was part of one of those arms consignment, Maulana Abdus Salam, one of the founders of HuJI,B who is also charged for the attack, told investigators.
The son of Sheikh Mazhar Ali of Bogura, madrasa-educated Salam went to Pakistan in 1984 for higher studies before travelling to Afghanistan to raise arms against the Soviet invasion.
The Dawra Hadith-graduate from Lahore’s Jamia Ashrafia Madrasa was arrested on Nov 1, 2009 over the grenade attack on the Awami League rally.
“I returned in 1989, when we launched Harkatul Jihad (HuJI, B). Between 1993 and 1996, we operated with the help of the then-administrations,” Salam told in his confessional statement.
HuJI, B’s first public event was held on Apr 25, 1992, with a rally. Donning Afghani attires, its activists raised slogans identifying them as ‘Mujahid-e Afghan’ (Afghan war veterans) and calling for jihad.
Five days later, on Apr 30, it held a media briefing at the National Press Club, where it unveiled plans for ‘religion-based nationalism’ and pledged introducing Islamic laws.
“After the Awami League came to power in 1996, our operatives were arrested from the Lalkhan Bazar madrasa (Chattogram) as well as 41 of our jihadists were held from the camp in Ukhiya (Cox’s Bazar), which led to almost a closure to our activities. Most them were sentenced to life in prison,” reads Salam’s statement.
Salam said he went to Pakistan in 1997 with his wife and children, before coming back in 2002, but a Pakistani passport bearing the name Gafur.
“I was running a girls’ madrasa in Bogura after returning. In March 2004, I had a meeting at Mohammadpur’s Sat Masjid mosque with Mufti Abdul Hannan (executed HuJI,B top leader), Maulana Tajuddin and Abdul Majed Butt. Tajuddin said it will be difficult for us to operate in Bangladesh and India if the Awami League comes in power and the only way to stop it was to eliminate Sheikh Hasina. With her out of the scene, the party will split and will never be able to come in power,” reads Salam’s confessional statement.
According to him, Tajuddin said that if the Awami League was not in power it would benefit Hizbul Mujahideen in Bangladesh and India as well as other organisations.
“Tajuddin said that he and Majed Butt will supply the grenades and arms. He also said his brother, the then-deputy minister at the BNP-Jamaat administration, assured him of all kinds of cooperation,” Salam said in the statement.
In May 2004, Salam went to Pakistan and returned a few days after the Aug 21 attack. “I had gone for raising funds for my madrasa.”
Salam said after the 2005 JMB series blasts, the police started to check his background.
“It’s then I got in touch with Khelafat Majslih leader Kazi Azizul Haque, who was an old acquaintance. Later, we went to meet the DGFI (Bangladesh military intelligence) Dhaka Detachment chief Col Salam. There I was introduced with DGFI officials Lt Col Saif, Lt Commander Mizan and several others, who later maintained contacts with me.
“I used to provide them inputs on militant activities across the country. I have had meeting with the DGFI, where HuJI leaders, Sheikh Farid, Maulana Monir and Maulana Sabbir were with me. I had helped to nab Sharif Shahed Bipul, one of the perpetrators in the 2004 attack on the UK envoy. In October 2005, Mufit Hannan was arrested. He told RAB about deputy minister Pintu’s brother Taj’s involvement.”
In his statement, Salam recalled a specific day at the office of DGFI’s Lt Col Saiful Islam Joarder.
“He received a phone call and said ‘It will be a problem if Maulana Taj is sent to RAB’. He left the room after the phone call and when we came back asked me about Taj’s whereabouts. I said I do not know, but I can try to reach him.”
Salam got in touch with Taj a few days later, when they went to the DGFI’s guest house in Dhaka’s Gulshan.
“We spent the night there. The officials spoke with him. When I asked Taj why the DGFI considers him as an important person, he said ‘I have some business and there has been some problem.’ When I wanted details, Taj said, ‘We sent stuff in India and there has been problem’.
“At one point, he said, ‘there has been a problem with the money, ammunition and grenades sent to India for Hizbul Mujahideen’. Taj also told me that Majed Butt brings grenades from Chattogram and they make arrangements for sending those to India,” Salam said in the confessional statement recorded by a magistrate.
The grenades, which came from Butt were used in the Aug 21 attack on the Awami League rally, Salam said in the statement before adding that the plan to assassinate Sheikh Hasina was hatched in Pakistan-administered Kashmir by Hizbul Mujahideen.
“A meeting was held the day before the attack at residence of Deputy Minister Pintu where the then-state minister for home Lutfuzzaman Babar was present, Taj told me. Taj was sent to Pakistan upon direct intervention of high ups in the government.”
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