The Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 at Old Dhaka’s Nazimuddin Road is set to deliver the verdict today (Wednesday). Judge Shahed Nuruddin of the tribunal may start delivering the verdict in the two cases shortly, court sources said.
Additional law enforcers were deployed at important points of the capital, including in and around the special tribunal, to fend off any untoward incident over the verdict.
Members of Rapid Action Battalion, Bomb Disposal unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police and Armed Police Battalion remained posted at Nazimuddin Road.
The movement of pedestrians on and around the road was also restricted, said DMP Deputy Commissioner (Media) Masudur Rahman.
BNP acting Chairman Tarique Rahman, Babar, Salam and former top police and intelligence officials of the then BNP-led four-party alliance government are among 49 accused in the cases.
Of them, three accused -- Jamaat secretary general Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, and militant leaders Mufti Abdul Hannan and Sharif Shahedul Alam alias Bipul-- were dropped from the cases as they had been executed after convictions in other cases.
Besides, Tarique, then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's political secretary Abul Harris Chowdhury, former BNP MP Mofazzal Hossain Kaikobad and 15 others have been on the run.
Thirty-one accused, including Babar and Salam, were produced before the tribunal from jail in Gazipur ahead of the delivery of the verdict.
They were brought to the tribunal from Kashimpur Central Jail in Gazipur in three prison vans around 11:20am.
Earlier, the prison vans carrying the 31 accused who are behind the bars in connection with the cases started from the Gazipur jail around 6:45am amid tight security, said jail sources.
On August 21, 2004, the grisly grenade attack was carried out on an anti-terrorism rally arranged by Awami League at Bangabandhu Avenue during the BNP-Jamaat alliance's rule, aiming to kill then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina.
At least 24 leaders and activists, including AL's women affairs secretary and late President Zillur Rahman's wife Ivy Rahman, were killed and 300 others injured in the grenade attack.
Although Sheikh Hasina fortunately escaped the attack unhurt, her hearing was affected badly.
At least 13 grenades were thrown from the rooftops of a nearby building soon after Sheikh Hasina had finished her speech at the rally.
Then the two cases -- one under the Explosive Substances Act and another for murder -- were filed in connection with the grenade attack.