Influential people are becoming ultra-wealthy overnight leading to an extreme margin of wealth distribution between the existing rich and the ultra-poor in our society.

“We know education is important. All of my three daughters studied up to grade five. But in our village, the demand of dowry increases if our daughters cross 15 years of age.

Social Welfare Minister Rashed Khan Menon yesterday said the August 21 grenade attack cases verdict has established rule of law in the country.

It was the cabinet's oath-taking night after the 2001 parliamentary elections. The phone rang in the newsroom of The Daily Star. On the other end of the phone was the quivering voice of a man who, in his Dhaka University student days, was an infamous “armed cadre” of a political party.

A court observation in the August 21 grenade attack case verdicts highlights the expertise of the attackers.

The grenades used in the August 21 attack to kill Sheikh Hasina were supplied by former deputy minister Abdus Salam Pintu's brother Maulana Tajuddin.

Death Penalty in each of two Cases

August 21, 2004...

The day before August 21, 2004, Dhaka city Awami League leaders had an informal meeting with party chief Sheikh Hasina for her directives on the next day's rally on Bangabandhu Avenue.

The BNP yesterday rejected the verdicts in the August 21 grenade attack cases alleging that those were delivered at the “behest of the government with a political motive”.

The morning rush hour traffic, which generally seems to stretch endlessly, suddenly disappeared at Chankharpul intersection yesterday.

Survivors and family members of the victims of the August 21 grenade attack said they were saddened that the court fell short of giving capital punishment to Tarique Rahman, who was convicted of conspiring and planning the carnage.

Rivalry between the ruling and the opposition parties is inevitable in politics, but it is utterly unacceptable that attempts will be made to make the opposition leaderless, a special court observed in its verdict in the August 21 grenade attack cases yesterday.

He was hardly known to outsiders until his father, General Ziaur Rahman who became Bangladesh's president in the process of several coups and counter-coups, died in another military putsch in May 1981. Through a Bangladesh Television programme, the countrymen, eventually came to know of Tarique Rahman. And today, he is facing life term as the court verdict goes. From the crux of political power he now lives the life of a fugitive.

It was a well-orchestrated plan, executed through abuse of state power, a special court has ruled, delivering verdicts in the two cases filed over the grenade attack on an Awami League rally 14 years ago.

Joj Mia, the man who falsely-implicated in the August 21 grenade attack incident, says he is not fully satisfied over the verdict as the mastermind of the attack BNP’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman was not awarded death penalty.

August 21, 2004 was a ghastly chapter in the political history of Bangladesh.

Political opposition BNP rejects the August 21 grenade attack verdict delivered today, and called for weeklong demonstration starting from tomorrow.

The defence counsel will be appealing against the August 21, 2004 verdict that has sentenced 19 people to death and others in imprisonment in two cases.

The government will seek higher punishment for BNP’s acting Chairman Tarique Rahman in the August 21 grenade attack cases, Law Minister Anisul Huq says.