Zia's son involved in abortive weapons smuggling to ULFA

Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Feb 8 (PTI) Former Bangladesh premier Khaleda
Zia's son Tarique Rahman was involved in an abortive smuggling
of weapons, believed to be meant for ULFA militants in India's
north-eastern state Assam, the detained prime accused in the
country's biggest ever arms haul case has claimed.

"Hafizur Rahman (the prime accused) has told the
magistrate that he had met Tarique Rahman at Hawa Bhaban along
with ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom) leader Paresh
Barua on April 1, 2004," the state-run BSS news agency quoted
a senior police official as saying on Sunday night.
The official said Hafiz named many other stalwarts of
Zia's past Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party
alliance government alongside intelligence and administrative
officials at the fag end in his confessional statement made
over the past two days before a magistrate.
Hafiz's 43-page statement came after he was
interrogated in custody for three days while he told the
magistrate that he escorted Barua to the Hawa Bhaban days
ahead of the offload of the secret consignment.
"Paresh Barua entered into the Hawa Bhaban leaving me
outside at the entrance and had a meeting with Tarique
Rahman," the official said quoting the statement as saying.
Tarique, who is now the senior vice chairman of BNP,
faces a number of graft and criminal cases, is now in London
while the party leaders said he was being treated there.
On the concluding day of three-day remand three days
ago, Hafiz agreed to confess before Metropolitan Magistrate
Mahbubur Rahman who recorded his confessional statements.


Investigation Officer Mohammad Moniruzzaman Sunday
said the latest statement of Hafiz seemed to be a "major
development" in the investigation process since a
reinvestigation into the scam was ordered two years ago.
But officials familiar with the statement said Hafiz,
however, did not disclose the source of the weapon consignment
as he was interrogated at the CID headquarters in Dhaka and
rather most of the time he repeated the information confessed
earlier during the two rounds of remands in custody.
The consignment of 10 truckloads of weapons was seized
despite suspected efforts of the influential quarters for its
safe passage through the Bangladesh's southeastern port city
but the case was shelved for years after the apparently
"accidental" seizure.
The past military-backed interim government two years
ago ordered the reinvestigation amid allegations that there
was a deliberate attempt on the part of the then
administration under the BNP-led government to suppress facts.
CID, which was tasked to re-investigate the case
earlier, obtained an extended three months' time from a
Chittagong court while the reinvestigation process yielded the
arrest of several high-profile intelligence officials
including two ex-army generals who earlier headed the apex
National Security Intelligence (NSI).
Several senior officials were also quizzed.
The latest development came a month after local
government minister Syed Ashraful Islam alleged that Zia's
past government had arranged a secret meeting of former
Pakistan President Parvez Musharraf with jailed ULFA leader
Anup Chetia in Dhaka while it was in power. PTI AR