DHAKA, 30 June 2005 — The world’s top crime investigating agency has found no link between a deadly attack on an opposition rally in Bangladesh and international terrorism, sources said yesterday. France-based Interpol also failed to find out evidences of any global network supplying anti-personnel army version grenades to the attackers, sources said.
A three-member Interpol team, including an official of the FBI, have been investigating the Aug. 21, 2004 grenade attack on the opposition Awami League’s rally in Dhaka that killed at least 23 people. The attack reportedly targeted Hasina Wajed, the opposition parliamentary chief and chairperson of the league.
Hasina was addressing the rally from an open truck in front of the league’s office in Dhaka attended by thousands of supporters and party workers, when grenades were hurled in the midst of the crowd, eyewitness accounts said. The dead included the league’s Women Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman. Scores of activists were injured in the attack which was blamed on international terror groups.
The Interpol team was also looking into possible links between the assassination attempt on Hasina and subsequent grenade attacks that killed former Finance Minister Shah A.M.S. Kibria and injured resident British High Commissioner Anwar Chowdhury.
