PM pledges retrial

Staff Correspondent

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said her government would seek retrial of the case filed for assassinating four national leaders.

Hasina accused former president Ziaur Rahman and her wife Khaleda Zia of rewarding the killers of the four leaders while addressing a discussion at Bangabandhu International Convention Centre in the capital marking the Jail Killing Day.

Earlier she paid rich tributes to the four leaders by placing wreaths on the portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Dhanmondi to commemorate the day.

She also offered special prayers for the salvation of the departed souls of the leaders as well as victims of August 15, 1975 massacre while visiting Banani graveyard.

The four liberation war heroes -- Syed Nazrul Islam, acting president of 1971 Bangladesh government in exile, Tajuddin Ahmed, prime minister of the same government, M Mansoor Ali, finance minister, and AHM Quamruzzaman, minister for home affairs, relief and rehabilitation -- were killed brutally inside the Dhaka Central Jail on November 3 in 1975 within less than three months after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

AL organised the discussion with party presidium member Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury in the chair.

The High Court (HC) last year awarded death sentence to Risaldar (retd) Muslemuddin, still on the run, and acquitted six former military men including Syed Farook Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda and AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed of charges in the jail killing case.

The government on September 14 filed five separate leave-to-appeal petitions with the Supreme Court (SC) against the HC verdict.

State Minister for Law Qamrul Islam yesterday said the government will seek hearing on leave-to-appeal in the case as the trial court earlier gave death sentences to three accused and life imprisonment to six others, but the HC upheld death sentence of one accused.

Addressing the discussion, the prime minister said the defeated liberation war forces killed the four leaders after the assassination of the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a bid to jeopardise the independence and sovereignty of the country.

Since the government assumed office and took initiative to hold trial of war criminals and conduct appeal hearing on the Bangabandhu murder case, among others, the conspirators started fresh plot against the government to save the killers.

Directing her party men to remain alert against any kind of conspiracy and foil it to keep democracy unharmed, Hasina firmly said there would be no place for the criminals and militants in the country and her government would establish Bangladesh as a most peaceful country in the Southeast Asia.

The prime minister also directed the party leaders to work towards fulfilling party's commitment that it gave to the people before the ninth parliamentary election.

Awami League general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam, party leaders Matia Chowdhury, Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Abdul Latif Siddiqui, Satis Chandra Roy, Mohammad Nasim, Mahbubul Alam Hanif and Dipu Moni, among others, spoke at the discussion.

Earlier in the morning Home Minister Sahara Khatun, State Minister Shamsul Haque Tuku, Qamrul Islam and AL lawmaker Mostafa Jalal Mohiuddin placed the wreaths at cell no.1 in the jail commemorating the killing of four national leaders.

Sahara said Bangabandhu memorial museum and four national leaders' memorial museum will be built beside their cell to commemorate Bangabandhu and the killing of the four national leaders.

AL and its front organisations and other socio-cultural political organisations also organised various programmes to mark the day.