The lamented leader

WHEN individuals lie as they often do, we as members of the civil society cry shame on them and condemn them as liars because as a nation we would like to see truth prevail over untruth and justice over injustice. But when the state lies it hurts the nation most grievously. It makes a whole lot of dents in the very soul of the state -- the ethos and the lofty ideals on which rests our claim on statehood and nationhood.
This state of ours which we all created in 1971 with the singular aim in view of upholding the principals of truth and justice in this country lied for the first time when in the early hours of August 15, 1975 the state controlled radio and television went on the air and kept misinforming the people of the catastrophe that had befallen the people in these words: "Mujib the tyrant and the traitor has been removed," while the truth was that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the most benevolent and beloved leader of Bangladesh had been brutally assassinated together with his entire family including his minor son Russel by a few misguided elements of the army at the behest of the then Awami League leader Mushtaq Ahmed as a part of an international conspiracy to rob this country of enlightened leadership and take the country back to ante March 26, 1971.
The state lied again for the second time when it secretly enacted the infamous indemnity law to indemnify the killers of Bangabandhu and his family members and kept the entire nation in the dark about it, while the truth was that these self confessed killers had not only been indemnified against any prosecution and trial but rewarded as well by job secured in the country's diplomatic service for the crime they had committed.
The fact that a man like Sheikh Mujib who is the very epitome of Bangladesh was brutally murdered together with his entire family in his own home and in his own country and by his own countrymen principally for his leading role in carving out an independent and sovereign Bangladesh and that the men guilty of this gruesome murder were indemnified and rewarded, by no less a man than Zia ur Rahman, a gallant freedom fighter, will remain a stigma for this nation for years to come. It pains me to think that the conscience and the soul of this nation was in limbo all these years when these killers and their patrons lived in dignity in this country as if they committed no crime by doing what they did.
Leave aside Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamat-e-Islami Bangladesh (JIB) who have been the major beneficiaries of the August 15 tragedy. What about other political parties, the Judiciary, the Bar, the intelligentsia, the learned and educated segment of our people, the Islamic clerics who speak of justice and human rights? Did they ever feel any shame by remaining silent spectators of the ballyhoo of the state condoning murder so gruesome and dastardly when it was their moral duty to raise their voice in favour of justice and truth? No. We are all ashamed as a nation because of our collective inaction. But the shame did not stop here. It continued even after the Awami League (AL) government of Sheikh Hasina succeeded in bringing this murder case for trial in 1996 because the trial remained stalled for over six years since 2001 for want of sufficient number of judges who could constitute a three-member bench of the Appellate Division to hear the petition for leave to appeal against the High Court verdict of death sentence in this murder case. As per law those of our learned judges who had felt " embarrassed " in the past to hear and those who have already heard this case cannot sit on the bench.
There is visibly a sea change in the manner of our appraisal of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as an icon and as a man who loved his people so passionately as no other man or woman would ever do.
The government's move is afoot to correct whatever distortions have been made in the history of this country by the immediate past BNP-Jamaat alliance government and accord Sheikh Mujib his rightful place in our history.
While it is a truism that justice delayed is justice denied, nothing is more profane and sinister than when not only the guilty is not punished but the guilty is granted amnesty. When we speak of the independence of the judiciary as mentioned in article 94(4) of the constitution, we do so because nothing bolsters the image of the country and that of its judiciary better than vindication of justice and truth at the hands of the judiciary .
As long as the national flag of Bangladesh will keep fluttering at the United Nations and at our Missions abroad and at important public buildings within the country, it will continue to remind us of the debt we owe to this legend and icon -- Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who led us to freedom from Pakistani rule in 1971. Now that he is no more with us, the best tribute we can pay to his memory is by upholding the principles of democracy, secularism, national unity and cohesion, communal harmony and Bengali nationalism that he held close to his heart till the last moment of his life and by bringing to justice those who murdered this great man in cold blood during the wee hours of August 15, 1975.

The writer is a Freedom Fighter and former Military Secretary to the President of Bangladesh.