Accusing BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia and his son Tarique Rahman of being involved in the 10-truck arms haul, local leaders of Awami League on Sunday said those were brought to make Bangladesh a terrorist state through creating conflicting situation inside the country.
The incident happened at the behest of Khaleda Zia and BNP senior vice-chairman Tarique Rahman, they said at a press conference at AL city unit president ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury’s Chasma Hill residence.
The press conference was arranged following the verdict in the cases filed over the country’s largest-ever arms and ammunitions haul.
Speaking on the occasion, Mohiuddin Chowdhury said the smuggling of the arms was aimed at training up militants in the Chittagong Hill Tracts through setting up small camps. “The ultra-modern destructive weapons would have been used to annihilate the pro-liberation forces.”
AL city unit general secretary AZM Nasir Uddin was, among others, present.
A huge cache of 10 truckloads of arms and ammunition was seized at Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL) jetty on the Karnaphuli river in the early hours of April 2, 2004.
Following the seizure, two cases — one under the Arms Act and the other under the Special Powers Act, 1974 — were filed with Karnaphuli police station the next day.
A Chittagong court here on Thursday sentenced to death 14 people, including Jamaat-e-Islami ameer and war crimes accused Matiur Rahman Nizami and former State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, after 10 years of the incident.
Source: UNBConnect
