DHAKA, Oct 10, 2018 (BSS)- The verdict of the deadly grenade attack on a rally of Awami League on August 21, 2004 got wide coverage in different international media, including BBC, AP, Al Jazeera, Reuters, the Hindustan Times, The Times of India and the Anandabazar Patrika.
BBC
A court in Bangladesh has sentenced 19 people to death for their role in a deadly grenade attack on a 2004 political rally in the capital Dhaka.
Those to hang include a former minister and deputy minister, both leaders of the BNP party which was then in power.
The party’s current acting head, Tarique Rehman, was convicted to life in jail in absentia.
Former state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar is the most prominent of those sentenced to hang.
The grenade attack left 24 people dead at the Awami League rally. Its leader Sheikh Hasina is now prime minister.
AP
A Bangladeshi court sentenced 19 people to death and the son of the opposition leader to life imprisonment on Wednesday over a deadly 2004 attack at a political rally held by current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Hasina narrowly escaped, having been whisked away by party members to a waiting car from a dais in front of the headquarters of her Awami League party near where several grenades exploded.
Judge Shahed Nuruddin delivered the verdicts at the court in Dhaka for 49 defendants facing multiple charges stemming from the attack.
Nuruddin said the attack was intended to eliminate the Awami League’s leadership, including Hasina.
The Hindustan Times and The Times of India:
Both the prominent Indian newspapers carried the story sent by PTI’s Dhaka office.
Tarique Rahman, the fugitive son of former Bangladesh premier Khaleda Zia, was sentenced to life and 19 others were given death sentence by a court here on Wednesday over the 2004 grenade attack that killed 24 people and injured 500 others, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The attack on an Awami League rally on August 21, 2004 targeted Hasina, who was the opposition leader at that time. Hasina survived the attack with a partial hearing loss.
Judge Shahed Nuruddin of Dhaka’s fast track Tribunal pronounced the judgment ordering Rahman to be sent to prison for life along with 18 others. Former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar is among 19 people who were sentenced to death. Rahman, two former ministers including Babar and former top police and intelligence officials of the then BNP-led four-party alliance government were among 49 accused in the cases. The judge made 12-point observations on the background, motive and consequences of the attack.
Anandabazar Patrika
A court awarded death sentence to 19 people including state minister for home affairs Lutfozzaman Babar and deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu of former Khaleda Zia’s government on charge of their attempt to kill Awami League President Sheikh Hasina.
The court also sentenced Tarique Rahman, the fugitive son of former Bangladesh premier Khaleda Zia, and 18 others to life imprisonment.
Aljazeera
A Dhaka court has handed down death penalty to 19 people, including two former ministers, and sentenced a top opposition leader to life imprisonment over a 2004 attack on the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“They shall be hanged by their neck,” said Justice Shahed Nuruddin of the special tribunal, who also awarded life imprisonment to Tarique Rahman, exiled son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.
Bangladesh’s Law Minister Anisul Haque said the government will move a higher court to seek death penalty for Rahman too.
The security in and around the special tribunal in the capital, Dhaka, was beefed up anticipating protests from BNP leaders and activists.
Senior BNP leaders, including former State Minister of Home Affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar and former Deputy Minister of Education Abdus Salam Pintu, were given capital punishment for hatching the plot to assassinate Hasina.
REUTERS
A Bangladesh court on Wednesday sentenced Tarique Rahman, the acting chairman of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to life in jail, and 19 more to death, over a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2004.
The opposition is in disarray ahead of general elections set for December, with Rahman trying to run its campaign from exile in London after his mother and party leader, former premier Khaleda Zia, was jailed on corruption charges in February.
The special court gave the death penalty to 19 people, several of them BNP leaders, including former junior home minister Lutfuzzaman Babar, for an attack on a public rally in 2004, government lawyer Mosharraf Hossain Kazal told reporters.
However, the government is dissatisfied with the sentence and will appeal to the Supreme Court, seeking the death penalty for Rahman, Kazal added. “We are not happy with this judgment as we expected that all of them (BNP members) would get death sentences, especially Tarique,” he said.