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No headway in probe of Aug 21 Grenade Attack
 Three years into the August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League (AL) rally and its chief Sheikh Hasina, progress in the investigation still stands at the start line, thanks to the influence on it of the immediate past four-party alliance government. The case now also stands as a glaring example of how governments' top levels can manage to manipulate criminal investigations to meet their own political ends. Less than a month into the attack, the then ruling BNP lawmakers in the parliament in presence of the erstwhile prime minister Khaleda Zia blamed AL for perpetrating the grisly attack on its own rally endangering the life of its own chief while leaving 24 killed and over 300 others maimed. The government's stance subsequently influenced the then investigators of the case enough to weave a story, involving a ward level AL leader and former ward commissioner of Maghbazar area in the capital, Mokhlesur Rahman. They attempted to feed the public the woven story through an ostensible confessional statement made by a petty criminal Joj Miah, in which he had named Mokhlesur as one of the planners of the attack.  Police officials, who had been tight-lipped about the case until the recent regime change bringing in the seat of power the current military backed caretaker government, are now saying that the erstwhile supervising officer of the case, criminal investigation department's (CID) Special Superintendent Ruhul Amin, invented Joj Miah out of the blue to keep the real criminals out of the reach of the probe. Joj's very weakly woven statement drew media criticisms finally making it appear as blatantly meritless, and he himself turned out to be a creation of the police department's well practiced imaginations, when his sister soon after his arrest divulged to the media that CID had been paying Joj Miah's family Tk 2,500 a month for upkeep since the arrest.Posted by: Fred 2007-08-21 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=196719 |