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Dhaka: Bangladesh police have formally pressed charges against 21 Islamist militants and an ex-junior minister for a grenade attack on former prime minister and Awami League chief Shaikh Hasina on August 21, 2004 that had left 24 people dead.
Officials said yesterday the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police has submitted the charge sheet in a Dhaka court on Tuesday accusing the 21 Harkatul Jihad (HuJI) operatives including its detained top leader Mufty Hannan and former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu of detained ex-premier Khalida Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
The charge sheet was filed about three years and a half after the attack with the chief metropolitan magistrate's court, which issued warrants for arrest of the eight fugitive accused as the rests including Pintu was already under custody to face the trial.
The development coincided with the release of the ex-premier on Tuesday from detention to fly abroad for treatment of her injured ears, which were damaged as she survived the grenade attack.
The United States earlier this year designated HuJi as a foreign terrorist organisation and "specially designated global terrorist" while Indian officials suspected the outfit's links in the Jaipur serial bombings last month.
The outfit is also believed to have carried out several other blasts including a 2001 bomb attack on crowds during Bengali New Year celebrations at Dhaka's Ramna Batmul leaving 12 dead and blasts on a Communist Party rally in 2005 claiming five lives.
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