Jail killing day: Commission to find all killers by end of year

The government is planning to set up a commission to identify all those who were involved in the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and four national leaders, including the conspirators, said Law Minister Anisul Huq.

"We are taking all steps to form the commission. We hope that it will be set up by December 31," he told The Daily Star while the nation observed Jail Killing Day yesterday with due solemnity.

Four national leaders -- Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad, AHM Quamruzzaman and M Mansur Ali -- were assassinated inside the erstwhile Dhaka central jail on November 3, 1975, barely two months after Bangabandhu along with most of his family members were killed in a bloody coup.

It has been more than 16 years since a trial court handed punishment to 11 perpetrators for the killing of the four leaders, who led the Liberation War after Bangabandhu's detention by the Pakistan army.

But justice still eludes the nation as the government could implement the verdict of only one, Captain Abdul Majed, out of the 11 convicted killers.

Majed, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in the jail-killing case, was arrested on April 7, 2020. He had been absconding for decades. Four days after his arrest, Majed was executed in a separate case centring Bangabandhu's murder, as he was convicted in it as well.

It is believed that all the convicts are hiding abroad, and the government could trace the whereabouts of only two -- Rashed Chowdhury, who is in the US, and Noor Chowdhury, who resides in Canada.  Authorities have failed to bring them back due to legal tangles.

Asked about the matter, the law minister said the government has already taken legal steps and engaged with the US and Canadian governments to bring back the two.

The Daily Star contacted AHM Khairuzzaman Liton, son of AHM Quamruzzaman, one of the four leaders, for his thoughts.

Liton, currently a praesidium member of Awami League and mayor of Rajshahi City Corporation, said the killers selected only the four national leaders among many other prisoners and killed them to completely ruin the country's independence.

He, however, believes that the killers could not damage the spirit of the Liberation War and independence, as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League implemented the dreams of independence.

CASE BACKGROUND

A day after the jail killing, Kazi Abdul Awal, then deputy inspector general (prisons), filed an FIR with Lalbagh Police Station.

ABM Fazlul Karim, then OC of the station, was tasked with the investigation.

But the infamous Indemnity Ordinance blocked the investigation and trial for about 21 years, until officers of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) reopened the probe on August 18, 1996.

In 2004, a trial court handed punishments to 11 perpetrators including Abdul Majed for the killings.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on April 30, 2013 upheld the court's verdict.

The three convicts who were handed capital punishment are Muslemuddin, Marfat Ali Shah and Abdul Hashem Mridha.

The eight jailed for life are Khondaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haq Dalim, Noor Chowdhury, Rashed Chowdhury, Ahmed Shariful Hossain, Abdul Majed, Kismat Hasem and Nazmul Hossain.

Four other accused -- Syed Farooq-ur Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda and AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed -- were executed in the Bangabandhu murder case in 2010.