Kaleda Zia's son charged over grenade attack

Tarique Rahman, the son of ex-Bangladeshi premier Kaleda Zia, and 29 others were charged on Sunday over a deadly grenade attack in 2004 on a rally of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that killed 24 people and injured some 300 others.

Rahman, 46, has been charged for abetting the attack that also injured Hasina. "We have submitted the supplementary charge sheet after an extended investigation into the case,"  Criminal Investigation Department's special superintendent Abdul Kahhar Akhand told mediapersons as the chargesheet was received by the chief metropolitan magistrate court.

He said that the extended investigations suggested that operatives of Harkatul Jihad al Islami carried out the attack on August 21, 2004 which was backed by several stalwarts of the then Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four party coalition government and security and police officials.

Akhand said their protracted investigations found the involvement of ex-state minister for home Lutfuzzaman Babar, ex-primer Khaleda Zia's political secretary Haris Chowdhury, former minister and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mujaheed and incumbent BNP lawmaker fugitive Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad.

The chargesheet also named three former police chiefs and ex-heads of two intelligence agencies Shahudul Haque, Ashraful Huda and Khoda Box Chowdhury and former directors general of National Security Intelligence ex-brigadier Abdur Rahim and ex-major general Rezzakul Haidar Chowdhury, who subsequently became the chief of the  agency.