Bangabandhu, family didn't beg for life
Neither the father of the nation nor any of his family members begged for their lives on August 15, 1975, but their killers are now begging for theirs, chief counsel for the state in Bangabandhu murder case told the Supreme Court yesterday.
Advocate Anisul Huq made the point while making his submissions before the court on the 23rd day's hearing of appeals of five condemned convicts in the case.
Quoting from eyewitness statements, he said even 10-year old Sheikh Russel, the youngest son of Bangabandhu, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, did not beg for his life.
Russel requested the killers to take him to his mother, but they murdered him instead, he said.
He said Bangabandhu and his family members showed courage in the face of imminent death.
When Bangabandhu's wife Begum Fazilatunnesa Mujib saw her husband's dead body she said, "Kill me right here, I will go nowhere else," Advocate Anisul Huq told the court, adding that Begum Mujib tried to save others in the house by sacrificing her own life.
Anisul Huq argued that the appellants assassinated Bangabandhu and his family members without any provocation, which proves that the killings were the result of a conspiracy for murder, not of a conspiracy for mutiny.
It was a conspiracy to murder the erstwhile president of the country, not any ordinary man, to capture the state power, he noted.
He argued if the incidents of August 15, 1975, were a mutiny, the killers would immediately attack and confine the then vice-president Syed Nazrul Islam, and the then prime minister M Mansoor Ali as well. But on that day, they only killed Bangabandhu and his family members, he added.
He said erstwhile minister Abdur Rab Serniabat, and the then chief of Awami Jubo League Sheikh Fazlul Haque Moni, who were also killed on that day, were Bangabandhu's relatives. So, the pattern of the murders proves that they were the result of a conspiracy to murder an entire family, not a conspiracy for a mutiny, he noted again.
The chief state counsel said the killers entered Bangabandhu's house blazing their guns, although there was no resistance from the victims.
Anisul Huq argued, the facts that the killers assembled at Balurghat Parade Ground where condemned convicts Syed Farooqur Rahman and Shariful Haque Dalim briefed the group, and then detachments of them took positions at six points of the capital city prior to the murders, prove that the incidents of that day were the result of a big pre-planned conspiracy for murders.
The five-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Justice Md Tafazzul Islam adjourned the hearing till this morning.
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