On May 27, the investigation officer (IO) of the case told a court that a detained JMB operative admitted to them that four JMB operatives carried out the attack on Azad, a professor of Bangla at Dhaka University (DU) and a noted linguist, at the directive of JMB chief Abdur Rahman.

Besides, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) on March 9 told a press conference that Abdur Rahman told interrogators at the Task Force Intelligence that he had ordered his local commanders to carry out the attacks on Azad and Rajshahi University teacher Prof Yunus in 2004.

A day after the attack on Azad, who later died abroad, police picked up two people -- Suman alias Babu, 12, a chatpati (local delicacy) seller and Meer Jahan, 34, a vegetable vendor -- whom police produced before a court as eyewitnesses to the incident.

In judicial statements on that day, they told a metropolitan magistrate that they saw two youths stabbing Prof Azad and fleeing the area through Suhrawardy Udyan, blasting a bomb. Sumon also said he would identify the attackers if he saw them again.

The claim of the two witnesses and the statement of detained JMB member Shafique Ullah alias Shad have given rise to controversies due to differing number of attackers.

There are allegations that police torture forced Suman and Meer Jahan to give statements before the magistrate.

Sources said the case is also an instance of how investigators picked up political opponents of ruling coalition and tortured them so that they confessed to their involvement in such sensational cases.

On February 28, 2004, police picked up Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) leader and DU student Abu Abbas Bhuiyan in connection with the attack on Azad and branded him as 'Boma (bomber) Abbas'.

The then IO of the case and Sub-inspector of Ramna Police Station Mahbubur Rahman, in his forwarding report on February 29, 2004, said Abbas is known as a person creating panic on the DU campus. He along with his accomplices made the attack on Prof Azad and fled the spot through Suhrawardy Udyan. On that day, the charge of investigation was handed over to CID Inspector Kazi Abdul Malek.

Abdul Malek on Tuesday told The Daily Star that investigation carried out so far suggests that JMB militants had carried out the attack. Asked whether BCL leader Abbas was involved in it, he replied that he could not say this now as the investigation was on.

On the forwarding report concerning Abbas, Malek said Ramna police first investigated the incident and submitted the report.

Immediately after his release on bail on March 14 this year, Abbas alleged that police brutally tortured him to force him to confess that he carried out the attack on Azad on orders from Sheikh Hasina (Awami League chief) and under the supervision of the then BCL President Liakot Shikder and General Secretary Nazrul Islam Babu.

"Police blindfolded me, hanged me from the ceiling, beat up me with sticks and kicked me," Abbas told a press conference on March 16. "What I can recall now is that police kept me bleeding in a cell. I was desperately asking for water but they did not give me anything to drink for long."

Immediately after the attack, Azad's family pointed an accusing finger at some fundamentalist quarters, who had threatened the author of over 50 books. But the investigators could not find any lead to the incident until the JMB chief admitted to Rab interrogators that the attack had been carried out on his order.

Another similar example is government action following the blasts in four cinemas in Mymensingh on December 7 in 2002 that left 21 people killed and over 200 injured.

Soon after the powerful blasts, the authorities arrested 14 people including AL leaders Saber Hossain Chowdhury and Motiur Rahman, writer-journalist Shahriar Kabir, Prof Muntassir Mamoon and journalist Enamul Hoque Chowdhury on charge involvement in those.

Some of the arrestees, at a press conference in March, narrated how brutally the law enforcers tortured them to secure confession from them that they were involved in the cinema blasts.

On March 9, the government disclosed that JMB had carried out the Mymensingh blasts, which contradicted its earlier finding. This showed the ruling alliance's use of law enforcers for political persecution.