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Mufti Hannan
Harkat ul-Jihad-i-Islami (Huji) leader Mufti Mohammad Hannan and two others of the banned outfit last night confessed to carrying out the August 21 grenade attack with intent to kill now detained Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina.
Hannan, the operations commander of Huji, his brother Mohibullah alias Mafizur Rahman and Moulana Sharif Shahidul Alam alias Bipul made the confessional statements under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sultan Mahmud recorded the statements in his chamber.
According to sources, the militants in their statements said that they had smuggled in the grenades from Afghanistan, the country where Hannan joined the Mujahideens to fight the then Soviet forces in the 80s.
They said they planned the attack at a house in Badda days before the blasts in 2004. Around 12 militants perpetrated the grisly crime that left 24 AL leaders and workers dead and at least 300 injured.
They wanted to kill the former premier out of grudges stemming from what they said was the ban on religious edict during her rule and action against leaders and workers of the Islamist organisations, added the sources.
Guarded by the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and police, the three were brought to the court at around 4:30pm. After half an hour they were taken to the magistrate’s room. Assistant Superintendent of Police (CID) Fazlul Kabir was accompanying them.
Earlier on October 23, Hannan, Mafizur and Bipul were placed on a 10-day remand each. The same day they were shown arrested in the August 21 grenade blasts case. Since then, the Task Force for Interrogation (TFI) has been quizzing them and the confessions came on the eighth day.
Rab intelligence officials caught the country’s top Islamist militant Mufti Hannan on October 1, 2005 at his rented house in the city’s Madhya Badda.
As of yesterday, the Huji boss has spent 133 days in remand in a number of cases including the August 17, 2005 countrywide blasts, the 2001 Ramna Batamul blast and the 2004 grenade attack on British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury in Sylhet.
During interrogation at the TFI cell, he and the other two Huji operatives gave some vital information leading up to the recent capture of nine suspected militants with a good number of grenades, firearms and explosives.
Of those netted, two took part in staging the August 21 grenade blasts while the rest were involved indirectly, said Rab officials. They however did not specify those who they said had a direct role in the attack.
The firearms and explosives seized include 16 Arges-84 grenades, four firearms and 60 kilograms of explosives. Rab officials said the grenades are from the same lot that had been smuggled in for the August 21 attack.
The arrestees include Hossain Ahmed alias Tamim, Abul Kalam Azad alias Bulbul, Jahangir Alam, Abdul Kuddus, Omar Faruq, Amirul Islam, Ali Ahmed, Mokaddes Billah and Mohammad Baki Billah.
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