Bangladesh court indicts Hannan, 12 other Huji members for CPB rally bomb blasts

At least 13 members of banned militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji), including the group's leader Mufti Abdul Hannan, have been indicted by a court in Bangladesh's capital city Dhaka over a murder case linked with the 2001 CPB rally bomb attacks.

According to The Daily Star, Judge KM Imrul Kayes of Third Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court of Dhaka framed the charges, but Hannan and five others of the accused pleaded innocence.

The trial is scheduled to start on September 14.

Bangladesh's Criminal Investigation Department had filed complaints against the accused in two cases on November 27 last year.

The Huji terrorists carried out a bomb attack on the rally of Communist Party of Bangladesh in the capital's Paltan Maidan on January 21, 2001 on the pretext that the CPB members in the rally were "atheists".

Hannan and seven other Huji members were recently handed out death sentences for killing 10 people in another bomb attack on Pahela Baishakh celebrations at Ramna Batamul in 2001, the report said.