Authorities in Bangladesh piled fresh pressure on the country's last PM, placing her under investigation over an attack on her main political rival.
DHAKA: Authorities in Bangladesh on Tuesday piled fresh pressure on the country's last prime minister Khaleda Zia, placing her under investigation over an attack on her main political rival.
More than 20 people died in the August 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League party rally, which was widely seen as an assassination attempt on Zia's arch-rival Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who served as prime minister from 1996 to 2001.
The two women, who lead warring political dynasties, have both been under intense pressure from the country's military-backed emergency government, which took power in January following months of infighting between their camps.
"Khaleda Zia, her son Tareque Rahman, and 26 others have had a case filed against them in connection with the August 21 attack," said Dhaka's deputy police commissioner Shahidul Haque Bhuiyan.
"The chief metropolitan magistrates court in Dhaka has asked police to investigate the case further."
The case was filed by Alhaj Badr Aziz, who was injured in the attack. He informed that he had attempted in vain to file a complaint while Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led coalition government was in power.
"I tried to file the case but no police station took it," he said, adding that he believed there was "sufficient proof that they wanted to get rid of Hasina and her supporters".
Others named in the case were Motiur Rahman Nizami, head of the BNP's largest coalition partner Jamaat-e-Islami, and former home minister Lutfuzzaman Babar, who is among 150 high-profile detainees arrested since January on suspicion of corruption. Others under investigation included a former national police chief and three other former BNP ministers.
Sheikh Hasina escaped the 2004 assault with minor leg injuries, although shots were also fired at her vehicle as she was whisked away by aides.
"She came as close as you can possibly come to being assassinated. It was a well coordinated and well thought out attack," her political secretary Saber Hossain Chowdhury said.
Zia's government denied any involvement in the attack after supporters of Sheikh Hasina accused it and its Islamist allies of being behind the incident.
Zia's government stepped down in October 2006. Street violence forced the cancellation of elections set for January and the imposition of a state of emergency. Re-scheduled elections are expected by the end of 2008.
Sheikh Hasina also faces a string of cases including murder charges in connection with the death of four people at a street demonstration last year, and along with Zia has been under pressure to go into exile.
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