As the home ministry ordered a manhunt to bring the perpetrators of the bomb attack on ruling party lawmaker Fazle Noor Tapash yesterday to book, police swung into action questioning bystanders and others present on or around the place of occurrence. The police detained Swapan, younger brother of a Bangabandhu murder case convict Shariful Haque Dalim, from Gulshan police station area on Thursday evening.

He was being questioned at the Motijheel police station in connection with the incident, said officer-in-charge of Motijheel thana, Arzu Miah. Home Minister Sahara Khatun yesterday told newsmen that there was 'a link between the ongoing Bangabandhu murder case appeals hearing and Wednesday's bomb attack' on Fazle Noor Tapash. 'Bomb attack on Fazle Noor Taposh during the trial of Bangabandhu murder case is not an isolated event,' she said while she was visiting the wounded people at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

Sahara thought the associates of Bangabandhu's killers had a hand in the bomb attack on Tapash, but said it should be investigated. 'We have to investigate why the attack was carried out.' "The trial of the attackers must be held. I have instructed the law enforcers to find out the attackers immediately after the incident,' a determined Sahara said. "The attackers must be nabbed and punished,' she ascertained. Awami League acting president and deputy leader of Parliament, Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury also visited the wounded at the DMCH and made identical remarks about the bomb attack on Tapash. To protest the attack, the AL and some other organizations staged demonstrations at Bangabandhu Avenue and elsewhere in the city in the city on Thursday afternoon and demanded immediate arrest of the attackers.

Fazle Noor Tapash, a nephew of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and elected lawmaker from the Dhaka-12 constituency, filed a case with the Motijheel police station on Thursday saying that the attack was made to create anarchy in the country when the Bangabandhu murder case was in the final stage. In his complaint, Tapash said that he was a member of the panel of lawyers conducting the Bangabandhu murder case now being held in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. "My father and mother were also killed on the night of August 15, 1975 when Bangabandhu and his family members were assassinated. The case is now in the final stage and it has become almost certain that the perpetrators would be hanged," he said. "To divert the attention and disturb the case, the collaborators of the perpetrators might have carried out the attack on me on Wednesday night,' police said quoting the case statement.

The bomb was hurled when Tapash was about to leave his office in Motijheel for his Dhanmondi residence at about 8:30pm Wednesday. Tapash escaped unhurt but 13 other people, including employees of Tapash's firm and AL activists were injured in the attack. Twelve of the injured were undergoing treatment at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital while the other, Masud al Mamun, was moved to the Combined Military Hospital. Following the attack, the law enforcers conducted a massive search in the capital and set up check posts at different strategic points to nab the attackers. Additional deputy commissioner of Motijheel zone, Moinul Haque, said that the bomb was hurled from a distance due to which it missed the target, Tapash, as there were no other significant personalities present there at the time. He said that the police questioned five security guards of two adjacent banks to extract information regarding the incident. The guards were Ruhul Amin, Mamunur Rashid, Mahbubur Rahman and Ahmed Ullah of Premier Bank and Fazlul Haque of P:rime Bank. Besides, the police also questioned several other employees of different firms adjoining the area.

-The Independent