Gunshots muted by probe

Aug 21 Attack, Hasina’s Jeep
Gunshots muted by probe
The Criminal Investigation Department’s charge sheet in the August 21 grenade attack case draws no conclusion about the much-reported bullet scars on the jeep that drove Sheikh Hasina out of the blast site.
It only cites local and Interpol experts’ diametrically-opposite opinions on the matter, find these correspondents who have lately obtained a copy of the charge sheet submitted in June last year.
Senior ASP Fazul Kabir, the immediate past investigation officer of the case, pressed charges against 22 people including Huji boss Mufti Abdul Hannan and former BNP deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu.
Now with a new IO assigned to the case, observers say, there’s room for unravelling the mystery five years after the carnage that left 23 AL leaders dead and scores maimed on Bangabandhu Avenue.
CID’s Senior Assistant Superintendent of Police Abdul Kahar Akand, the present IO, said besides tracking down the source of the grenades used in the attack, they will seek to undo the contradictions and anomalies in the previous probe and also solve the gunshot riddle.
“If I find anything fresh in my investigation, I will include it in the charge sheet,” he told The Daily Star last week.
A few days after the attempt on Hasina’s life on August 21, 2004, Interpol experts came to help the local investigators with the probe.
Later that year, Fred J Bradford of Interpol, the international police organisation, sent a report to the Bangladesh authorities.
The report states that the vehicle whisking away Hasina indeed came under fire.
“There was some shooting around the vehicle, more than 10 rounds perhaps. The window on her [Hasina] side was shot at twice and the back window five times. The vehicle was also struck by grenade pellets,” reads the report that was also tagged with the charge sheet.
“Mahbub, one of her personal staff, was protecting her in the shield and he was felled by a bullet near her vehicle, net by a ‘large splinter’.”
Local ballistic experts’ opinion in the charge sheet however contradicts the Interpol findings.
The CID experts said the marks on the then opposition leader’s bullet-proof four-wheel drive were not of bullets. Rather, the dents were caused by spherical metallic balls used in a special type of grenade.
Asked why he included in his charge sheet the opposing findings, ASP Fazlul Kabir said he did this because he did not want to jump to conclusions.
Queried what in his opinion explains the scars more logically, he said he subscribes to the views of their ballistic experts.
Talking to The Daily Star on Thursday, he went on to dismiss the Interpol findings as an “international blunder”.
Kabir, who took over as IO during the caretaker government rule, said, “We brought the jeep to our office and examined it minutely. I think our experts’ report is more authentic and acceptable.”
About the way Hasina’s personal staff Mahbub died, he said the post-mortem report says his body bore no bullet wounds.
Fairness and credibility of the August 21 blasts investigation were open to question from day one.
On August 22, a 35-member army team led by a captain exploded most of the grenades recovered from the scene the day before.
Those with expertise in explosives and terror investigation say detonating the grenades was a mistake.
The unexploded grenades could have helped the investigators get to the source of the grenades, said an explosive expert on condition of anonymity.
Three former CID officials who were in charge of probe during the BNP-led four-party rule now face criminal proceedings for misleading the investigation.
They are former investigators Abdur Rashid, Munshi Atiqur Rahman and ex-supervising officer of the case Ruhul Amin.
Fazlul Kabir filed the case against them.
A court has lately ordered further investigation after the prosecution moved a prayer arguing that the investigation is incomplete as it could not trace the source of the grenades.
Hasina’s SUV became a major issue in the probe with the then ruling alliance and law enforcers trying to establish that no shooting took place on August 21.
Speaking in return for anonymity, some investigators at that time told The Daily Star that two teams of gunmen opened fire on the AL president’s speeding jeep soon after the blasts.

Courtesy of The Daily Star