Abdus Salam Pintu, vice-chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and former deputy education minister, has been released from prison after nearly 17 years.
He had been incarcerated in connection with the 21 August 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally at Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka, where Sheikh Hasina, the party’s president, was speaking.
Pintu was freed from Kashimpur Central Jail on Tuesday (24 December), at 11:05 am.
Supporters and family members greeted him with floral tributes as he exited the prison gates.
The High Court recently overturned the lower court's ruling in the grenade attack case, declaring the judicial process based on the supplementary charge sheet invalid.
The verdict, issued on 1 December, dismissed the death reference and accepted the appeals filed by the accused.
Senior Jail Superintendent of Kashimpur Central Jail Part-2, Al Mamun, confirmed that Pintu’s bail documents arrived from the court on Monday.
After verifying the paperwork on Tuesday morning and confirming no pending warrants in other cases, the authorities released him.
Abdus Salam Pintu, the founding general secretary of the Tangail district BNP, was elected as a Member of Parliament for the Tangail-2 (Gopalpur-Bhuapur) constituency in 1991, 15 February 1996, and 2001 national elections.
He served as the deputy education minister in 2001.
Pintu was arrested in January 2008 in connection with the 21 August grenade attack case and remained behind bars as a death row convict until his release.
