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DHAKA, May 4, 2025 (BSS) – The hearing of the leave to appeal against the High Court (HC) verdict which cleared all the accused in the August 21 grenade attack, 2004 case will be held on May 6. 

A three-member bench of the Appellate Division (AD) of the Supreme Court (SC) led by Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury passed the order fixing the date for hearing upon a petition of the state.

Earlier on December 1 last, the HC announced the verdict acquitting all the accused in the case, saying that the charge sheet upon which the trial court held the trial was not acceptable as per the law upon hearing of the death references and appeal. 

“So, the verdict of the trial court was annulled,” the HC order said. 

In the grenade attack on a rally of Awami League at the capital city’s Gulistan area on August 21 in 2004 left 24 persons dead and several hundred others injured.

Two separate cases---one for murder and one for under Explosive Substances Act---were registered with Motijheel Police Station in the connection.
  
The trial of the case was started with submission of the charge sheet by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) during the period of the caretaker government in 2008.
  
In the supplementary charge sheet, 30 more names including BNP’s Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman were included following reinvestigation into the case after Awami League assumed power in 2009. 

Dhaka’s Speedy Trial Tribunal-1 Judge Shahed Nur Uddin passed the verdict in the case on October 10 in 2018. The court awarded death penalties to former state minister for home Lutfuzzaman Babar, ex-deputy minister for education Abdus Salam Pintu and 17 others while life term imprisonment to 19 others including Tarique Rahman and various jail terms to 11 others.

Of the convicted individuals, 18 remain at large, while 31 are currently in custody.