Son of former Bangladesh Prime Minister charged over grenade attack

Prosecutors charged the eldest son of ex-Bangladesh premier Khaleda Zia Sunday over a 2004 grenade attack that killed 20 people and injured rival and current prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Tareque Rahman, 46 and now living in London, has been indicted for abetting the attack, the country's worst political violence in decades which severely injured one of Hasina's ears, state prosecutor Syed Rezaur Rahman said.
"We have pressed charges against Tareque and 29 others including a former political secretary of Zia, an ex-home minister, a leader of the country's top Islamist party and a Kashmiri militant," Rahman told AFP.
"We have evidences that Tareque abetted the grenade attack. The main culprits met him at his Hawa Bhaban office, where he assured them all kinds of help for the attack. The aim was to kill Hasina."
Hasina, the then main opposition party leader, was addressing a rally in central Dhaka on August 21, 2004 when the grenades went off, leaving at least 20 people dead including the wife of the country's current president.