Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday stressed the need for expediting the implementation of the trial court’s verdict in the August 21, 2004 grenade attack case. “Our leaders and activists, including Ivy Rahman, were brutally killed in broad daylight on August 21. The trial has been held. Its (trial court) judgment has been handed out. This verdict should be implemented soon,” she said. The premier was addressing a discussion arranged by Bangladesh Awami League (AL) at Dhaka’s Bangabandhu Avenue, marking 19th anniversary of the August 21 grenade attack. The grenade attack was carried out on an anti-terrorism rally organised by the then opposition AL on August 21, 2004 in front of its central office on Bangabandhu Avenue. The gruesome attack left 24 people killed and nearly 1,000 injured. AL president and then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina luckily survived, but her hearing was impaired by the repeated grenade blasts. Among the dead was Awami League’s women affairs secretary and late president Zillur Rahman’s wife, Ivy Rahman. A Dhaka court had already convicted and sentenced 49 people, including 19 to death and 19 to life imprisonment. Eleven were sentenced to different prison terms. Read: 19th anniversary of Aug 21 grenade attack today Eighteen of the convicted, including BNP leader Tarique Rahman, remain fugitives. Appeals against the judgment are now being heard in the High Court. Sheikh Hasina, while presiding over today’s discussion, said some of those convicted in the grenade attack case are now in jail but the main mastermind remains outside the country. Without mentioning Tarique Rahman, she said that he went abroad signing a bond. “If he has courage, why doesn’t he come back? We’ve transformed the country into Digital Bangladesh. He is now talking big, taking its advantages… He should come back, if he has courage. People of Bangladesh will not spare that killer,” she said. Recalling the grisly grenade attack, the premier said Khaleda Zia was the prime minister at the time, and the question remains what role she played at that time. Read: It was a state-sponsored conspiracy to kill Hasina: Witness and injured Nazib recalls horror of Aug 21 carnage She questioned why Khaleda obstructed police (from taking appropriate measures) and didn’t take any initiative to protect evidence of the attack. “What does it prove? There is no doubt that Khaleda, Tarique and their men were completely involved in the grenade attack. It was also revealed in the investigation,” said the AL president.

The investigation into the killing of veteran Awami League leader and former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria is yet to make significant progress.