I did not write on the bid to kill Bangladesh opposition leader Sheikh Hasina earlier because I wanted to first talk to her and Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. I have returned from Dhaka a couple of days ago and l have met both of them. Not that I can say with certainty who were the assassins. But I can give the versions of both.

Nonetheless, the blame game is going on and many names are being bandied about. India, Pakistan and the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), even the Awami League, and of course, al-Qaida. This has only made the confusion more confounded.

Let me first reconstruct the incident. The Awami League, headed by Hasina, planned on August 21 a rally from its party office which is located in the heart of Dhaka. The rally was about to move with-the culmination of her speech around 5 pm when eight grandees from all sides were lobbed at her, standing on a truck's makeshift podium. The security men as well as her supporters made themselves into a shield to give her a cover. She was forced into her bulletproof car, which was also fired at. She miraculously escaped all that but 18 people died in the attack. Among them-were her two close associates in the Awami League.

It was a professional job. Those who threw the grenades knew how to do so because it involved extracting a pin within three to four seconds before throwing it. Those who shot at the bulletproof car were also trained hands. And there is no doubt that all of them, said to be 30 to 35, had one target: Hasina.

Till I was in Dhaka none had been arrested; none in the police was suspended and no one at the top had any clue either. The government has appointed a judicial commission but has done little to collect evidence. The two unexploded grenades, which could have provided a lead, were diffused soon after. The police used teargas to disperse the crowd which included the assailants who apparently used the opportunity to escape. The police first returned the truck to the owner but retrieved it later following the public outcry.

Hasina, whom I met first, had no doubt that it was the job of the army which she alleged was against the liberation of Bangladesh. She suspected a deep conspiracy in which the highest in the ruling BNP were involved. She said that Pakistan too had some role to play.

"This was an attack on secular democratic forces," she said. "I would say that those who could not kill me and my sister on August 15, 1975 when they assassinated my father tried to implement their unfinished agenda." She had no faith in Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's government, nor in the judicial commission which she had already boycotted.

Hasina was unnerved when I met her. But she had no doubt that more attempts would be made to "finish me.'' One of his associates present during the meeting mentioned the name of Tariq, son of Khaleda. He also said that the BNP and the Jammat-I-Islami were out to eliminate "our charismatic leader."

Hasina was not opposed to the FBI and the Interpol which had already swung into action to find out the culprits. "But from where will they get evidence because the government has destroyed all?" she asked. The FBI and the interpol are banking on the footage of the Bangladesh Television, perched on a third floor in a nearby building, has filmed the incident from the beginning. Many faces have been blown up into huge pictures, some of them reportedly known criminals. "I cannot recognise any," said Hasina, "because my glasses were broken when I was pushed into the car. Where do we go from here, I asked her. "I wish I knew. But they would not rest until they have killed me," she said.

The version of Prime Minister Khaleda was entirely different. She disowned all allegations. She said that something tragic had happened and "we must find out who are behind it." She appealed to Hasina to help her get at the bottom of the crime. She said she had allowed a full Parliament debate on the murderous attack.

"I wrote to her and wanted to meet her but she refused to even respond," said Khaleda. ("I did not invite her to my place," said-Hasina "because anything could have happened when relatives of the killed were sitting all the time at my house.")

I told Khaleda that Hasina alleged that you were behind the attack. She said in reply: "Tell me what will I gain by killing her? I am doing well and in control of things. The country is peaceful. We have done a tremendous job in rehabilitating 40 million people who were affected by floods. Why should I do something that could upset everything?"

"I believe you are putting the blame on India," I asked Khaleda. "That is not true. Some people are saying that." Still she did not say that India was not to blame even when I asked her whom did she suspect. "The investigation is yet to be completed,'' is all that she would say. After a pause, she said it was the job of "outsiders." When I asked who, she said that there were "some Awami League members in Kolkata. They would be questioned on their return."

Do you suspect them? "We have to know everything," she said. Khaleda went back to her theme of unity in the country. "I have talked to some editors, ex-bureaucrats and others to bring us together. I hope they will help me in this task because the country is bigger than all of us."

Sometimes, I fear, I told her, that the army might walk in again. She said; "We are a democracy. The army has no business to interfere. So many tragedies had taken place all over the world. Did the army come in after the 9/11 incidents in America? In your own country even Parliament was attacked. The government dealt with it. Why should it be different in Bangladesh?"

Khaleda was full of praise for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He was a good administrator. "That is what a government requires." She said she was happy with former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayeee as well. She wanted good relations with India but she complained "some newspapers in your country were hurting the process by misinterpreting the August 21 incident (the attack on Hasina)."

Could that be the reason why Khalada's foreign minister Murshed Khan said at a seminar that India could not pick up "one party for support?" He did not mention the name but his reference to the Awami League was obvious. Law Minister Moudud Ahmed defended Murshed's outburst thus: "When the Indian Prime Minister rings up only Sheikh Hasina after the incident and not also the prime minister, as US Secretary of State Collin Powell did, what inference should we draw?"

When I told Khaleda how people to people contact between India and Pakistan was changing the climate in the two countries and cited the example of lighting candle on the night of August 14-15 at Wagha border, she said she would like a similar thing on the  India-Bangladesh border. "I am all for the people to-people contact."

People to people contact between India and Bangladesh will take some time to mature. But people to people contact within Bangladesh is the need of the hour. The nation is more sharply divided after the August 21 incident.

Source: daily Deccan Herald, Sept. 15, 2004

 URL:http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/sep152004/lines.asp