By IANS
Dhaka : Dhaka will shortly send a team of investigators to India to bring back two Bangladeshi brothers who were allegedly involved in planning and executing a grenade attack on an Awami League rally in 2004.
While former prime minister Sheikh Hasina escaped injury, 27 people including senior party leaders were killed and hundreds injured in the Aug 21, 2004 attack carried out by the Islamist militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HUJI).
HUJI members Anisul Mursalin and Muhibbul Muttakin are currently in Tihar Jail in New Delhi, The Daily Star said Wednesday.
They have been there since their arrest at the Delhi railway station on Feb 26, 2006 with three kg of high-powered RDX, two electronic detonators and two pistols.
This was the third known attempt on the life of Hasina, who was allegedly fired upon as she was whisked away in a bullet-proof vehicle.
The incident had shocked the world community. The then government of prime minister Khaleda Zia had condemned the attack and set up a high level probe. But the investigations slowed down, despite efforts to get the help of Interpol, media reports have said.
The investigations have resumed since a caretaker government took office in January last year and Interpol has been engaged.
Leaders of Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), including a minister, were also alleged to be behind the attack.
If the brothers could be brought back, important leads about the involvement of detained former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu and other masterminds in the grenade attacks would surface, the newspaper said.
“As Muttakin and Mursalin were involved in the plot to carry out the August 21 attacks, once they are brought back, they would be brought face to face with Pintu so that he cannot avoid his and other masterminds’ links to the attack,” an investigator told the newspaper.