DHAKA, 31 January 2005 — The son of assassinated former Bangladeshi Finance Minister Shah A.M.S. Kibria has accused the ruling Nationalist-Islamist coalition of killing his father, officials said yesterday. “My father has been killed in a pre-meditated manner,” Dr. Reza Kibria told reporters, adding that an international probe into the grenade attack would uncover the true culprits.
The 74-year-old Kibria was killed in a grenade attack on an opposition rally carried out by unidentified assailants in northeastern Habiganj district on Thursday.
Deeply shocked by the brutal killing, Kibria’s daughter, Nazni, blamed the coalition government of denying her father timely medical treatment after he was struck down by an exploding grenade along with four other people attending the rally organized by the main opposition Awami League.
“From whom will we seek justice?” said Nazni Kibria, expressing doubts about getting justice from the government or any of its organizations. Kibria, a retired diplomat and lawmaker, was finance minister in the Awami League government for five years from 1996 to 2001.
Traffic ground to a halt and shops closed across much of Bangladesh yesterday as a nationwide strike protesting a deadly grenade attack on the main opposition party entered a second day.
Thousands of police and paramilitary forces patrolled the capital Dhaka to halt sporadic violence, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mizanur Rahman said.
Three buses were torched and police arrested more than 40 protesters after several people were injured when police baton charged a crowd and lobbed teargas in the old part of the capital Dhaka, Rahman said.
The main opposition Awami League party and allies called the three-day strike starting Saturday to protest a grenade attack on a rally Thursday that killed five people, including a former finance minister.
The first day of the protest Saturday brought the country largely to a standstill. One person was killed and more than 100 people were injured as police moved in to break up protests.
There were reports of sporadic violence yesterday with demonstrators setting a bus on fire in the city’s commercial district, Motijheel. Trading in the stock market and banking services, normally open yesterday, remained suspended.
On Saturday Bangladesh asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Britain’s Scotland Yard to help investigate the grenade attack as dozens of people were arrested.
The call for help came after appeals by the Awami League and the human rights group Amnesty International for a thorough probe into the grenade attack.
In a statement, London-based Amnesty International accused the government of failing to investigate earlier attacks with “rigor and determination”.
The group said that “unless such inquiries are conducted thoroughly and impartially, they will lack credibility and the culprits will be sheltered from justice”. The grenade attack, which killed former finance minister Shah A.M.S. Kibria and four others, came just over a week before a regional summit of South Asian leaders in Dhaka.
Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan said the attack would have no impact on the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation meeting on Feb. 6-7.
The opposition enforced 22 protest shutdowns last year, despite pleas from aid donors and business groups who say such actions hit the nation’s impoverished economy. The strike halted cargo deliveries at Chittagong’s port and disrupted rail services, officials said. Other parts of the country were also affected.
Visitors Barred From Dhaka Airport to Enforce Security for SAARC Summit
Hundreds of people coming to receive or see off their relatives and friends at Zia International Airport (ZIA) in Dhaka yesterday got stranded outside it and suffered a lot as the government has enforced a yellow security alert ahead of the Feb. 6-7 summit of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) preventing visitors from reaching the terminal building.
The restriction imposed since Jan. 27 made the visitors, including many women, stuck up on the adjacent Dhaka-Mymensingh highway. Armed police battalion and Dhaka Metropolitan Police deployed at the ZIA, stopped them on the road, creating a state of chaos and confusion.
Periodic announcements over microphone were however being made near the gathering explaining the necessity of allowing fewer visitors. Only one visitor was allowed to accompany a passenger having valid travel documents to the terminal building after a strict security check. Many of the visitors alleged harassment by security personnel.
Nasiruddin Rana from Narayanganj came to receive his brother arriving on a Thai airlines flight from South Korea but police did not let him in.
“I have no information if my brother is still inside the terminal or has left it,” he said in disappointment.
Another visitor, Yakub Ali from Demra, said, “ I have come to pick up my brother coming from Saudi capital Riyadh. Since I had asked him to wait in the terminal until he sees me, I think he is still waiting for me.”
Most of the visitors complained of not having access to any information about the passengers they were waiting for and blamed the authorities for this.
