People will judge August 21 grenade attack: AL

In an immediate reaction to the High Court verdict in August 21 grenade attack cases, the country’s oldest political party Awami League (AL) has termed it as a ‘kangaroo court’.

In a post on the Awami League's verified Facebook page on Sunday (December 1), the party said, "Not Yunus's kangaroo court, the people of Bangladesh will judge the August 21 grenade attack."

Earlier in the day, the High Court acquitted all the accused of August 21 grenade attack cases including BNP acting chairperson Tarique Rahman and former state minister Lutfozzaman babar.

The court also scrapped the lower court verdict, in which total 49 persons were convicted.

The cases were filed following a grenade attack on an Awami League rally at Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka that claimed 24 lives and left about 300 injured.

Then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, who later ran the country for 15 years as prime minister and was forced to resign and flee on August 5 this year following a mass uprising, narrowly escaped the attack on August 21, 2004.

A Dhaka court on October 10, 2018, sentenced 19 people, including former BNP state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar to death in the two cases filed in connection with the grenade attacks.

Nineteen others including BNP acting chairman Tarique Rahman, now in London, were given life imprisonment and 11were handed different terms in prison.