Six months after being prematurely discharged from prison, where he was serving a life term, a former Bangladesh’s DGFI Director went on a 12-day visit to Guangzhou in China from where he returned to Dhaka on June 18, sparking off speculations that he may still be “active”.
Bangladeshi government sources revealed that Major General (retd) Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, who was sentenced to serve a life-term in prison for his involvement in the sensational 2004 case involving the smuggling in of ten truckloads of arms and ammunition into the country, left for Guangzhou on June 6.
While Bangladeshi intelligence agencies are trying to find out the purpose behind Chowdhury’s Guangzhou visit, they have been able to establish that he took a Bangla-US Airline flight (No. BS-325) to fly out of Dhaka on June 6 before returning (flight number BS-326) home on June 18.
Chowdhury and six others, including Lutfuzzaman Babar, a former BNP Minister of State for Home, were acquitted by the Bangladesh High Court in December 2024.
Among these were United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) chief Paresh Barua who continues live somewhere in Yunan province in China.
Barua was among those who were sentenced to death in 2004.
The death sentence awarded to six other convicted persons was commuted to 10 years in prison each.
Babar was acquitted in another case involving a 2004 grenade attack intended to target Sheikh Hasina who at that time was in opposition.
The case involving Chowdhury relates to the seizure of ten truckloads of weapons and ammunition in Chittagong in April 2004.
The deadly consignment, sourced from Thailand, included 27,000 grenades, 150 rocket launchers, more than 1.1 million rounds of ammunition and 1,100 sub-machine guns.
This cargo was first brought over by a ship belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami leader Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury before it was offloaded at the Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited (CUFL) jetty in Chittagong.
Subsequent investigations by Bangladeshi law enforcement authorities found that the weapons and ammunition were meant for India’s northeast insurgents, primarily the ULFA.
While the case was not investigated till such time the BNP remained in power (2001-2006), it was pursued with gusto by a caretaker government in 2008 when it was found that Chowdhury and other intelligence officers working in the National Security Intelligence (NSI) facilitated the weapons landing in Chittagong.
Investigators also found that the weapons and ammunition consignment originated in a Chinese state-controlled company NORINCO or China North Industries Group Corporation Limited.
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At dawn on April 2, 2004, two trawlers moored at the CUFL jetty on the Karnaphuli River in Chittagong. Here, the arms and ammunition consignment was offloaded before they were loaded onto ten trucks.
The trawlers, identified as Amanat and Kazadan, picked up the weapons cache from a ship which had laid anchor at St Martin island in the Bay of Bengal.
This ship was said to belong to Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury’s shipping company QC Group.
Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury, a 1971 war criminal, and an Al Badr leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed were hanged in November 2015.
