Sadik Hassan Rumi, who was the director general of directorate of forces intelligence (DGFI), told a court in Dhaka in a pre-trail statement that he was denied permission to investigate the case, saying Begum Zia appeared annoyed and virtually rebuked him as he tried to talk to her on the issue. “From where you gathered the ridiculous information… what is your headache if Tajuddin (a key attack plotter) goes to Pakistan or anywhere else?” he recalled Zia as telling him as he tried to confirm a report that the PM herself had ordered safe passage abroad of Maulana Tajuddin.
………
Tajuddin, brother of the then BNP deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu, was involved with a Pakistani militant organisation and used to supply grenades, ammunition and explosives from Pakistan to a militant group in Kashmir through Bangladesh. His name surfaced when Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJI) chief Mufti Abdul Hannan was quizzed.
Mufti’s name came up when a HuJI operative, Shahedul Alam Bipul started singing before the investigators. Hannan also spilled the beans on Rumi’s boss, the (then) minister of state for home Lutfozzaman Babar. He pointed the finger at Babar. A minister whose job was to uphold law and the constitution, was himself involved in the conspiracy to eliminate Begum Hasina.
Rumi’s testimony paints a grim picture of the post-crime scene. It will have political ramification since Khaleda Zia led opposition is in a combative mood even though next general election is due in early 2014.
For Khaleda, this is second set back from an unexpected quarter this year. The first was the report in March-April from Pakistan that she was funded by ISI in the 1991 elections.
The ISI –Zia link expose was rather accidental. Pressed by Pakistan’s Supreme Court on the activities of ISI’s political cell, a former ISI Chief, Lt Gen Assad Durani, submitted an affidavit over ISI’s funding for politicians both “within and outside Pakistan”. It is this document that states that ISI had paid Khaleda Zia Rs 50 million.
Durani has credibility at home and abroad as an upright officer though he had headed the dirty tricks agency of his country. More over, Durrani’s statement has to be true since it was made in court, according to Mahbubul Alam Hanif, joint general secretary of the Awami League.
BNP leaders were quick to deny the report; BNP’s acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said (March 19) that an Indian journalist had spread the ‘rumour that was not even covered by any Pakistan newspaper’. Immediately, he faced a volley of taunts. “If Begum Zia is guilt-free, she should take up the matter judicially. And since it involves transnational issues, why doesn’t she sue the Pakistan ISI in the International Court of Law?”
Such a course of legal battle would have been logical but Begum Zia did not pursue for reasons unspelt till date. This issue is therefore bound to haunt Khaleda in the next general election. “If BNP is incapable and not fully sure of the matter themselves, it will remain a popular barb against them, come next general election”, cautions a letter writer in a leading Dhaka daily.
The ISI angle aside, Begum Khaleda will find the going tough from Sadik Hassan Rumi’s explosive testimony. It is a long pre-trail testimony. Some details will suffice to get a feel of the damage potential.
The former DGFI says “I understood the (then) prime minister (Zia) knew everything beforehand”. He met her a day after the attack that killed at least 24 people, including then President Zillur Rahman’s wife and senior politician Ivy Rahman, and left Hasina with hearing disability.
Rumi sought permission of the Prime Minister of the day to probe the attack on the life of a former Prime Minister. But she told him a committee would be formed to inquire into the matter and that “I (DGFI) needn’t investigate.”
Later, when there was a meeting at the home ministry about this incident, the then director (CIB) of DGFI, Brig Gen Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, represented the DGFI. From Rezzakul he gathered that the government-appointed investigation committee could unearth nothing. Rumi points the needle at Zia’s ‘fugitive’ elder son and Bangladesh nationalist Party vice president Tarique Rahman.
Given this backdrop, the investigations into August 21 attack, though considerably delayed by now, is, as the Daily Star observes, a test of character. The change of government in 2009 helped no doubt in speeding up the process to bring the guilty to book.
For observers of Bangladesh scene, the nugget that HuJI had been trying to kill Sheikh Hasina even before Aug 21 happened is disturbing. “HuJI believed if Hasina remained alive and the AL came back to power it would not be possible to save Islam and hurdles would be placed in HuJI’s way”, according to Mufti Abdul Hannan.
Though banned, HuJi has not changed. It is not dormant either. Nor its contacts with BNP and sections of law enforcement agencies are.
-malladi rama rao
