Killing day in prison today | The Daily Star

Four national leaders were killed today 49 years ago in Dhaka Central Jail.

It has also been more than 18 years since a trial court convicted 11 people of the crime they committed in 1975. But the sentences remain largely unexecuted.

The four leaders are Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad, Capt (retd) Mansur Ali and AHM Quamruzzaman.

One of the convicts, Captain Abdul Majed, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, had been caught on April 7, 2020, after being on the run for decades. He was executed for killing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Among the other convicts, who are hiding abroad, Rashed Chowdhury is in the US and Noor Chowdhury in Canada. The government was unable to trace eight others, despite efforts through diplomatic channels, intelligence agencies and Interpol.

The government also failed to bring back Rashed and Noor.

On this day in 1975, five army men wearing khaki uniforms and carrying rifles went to the Dhaka Central Jail around 4:00 AM.

One of them identified himself as Captain Muslemuddin, who was attached to Bangabhaban, entered the jail and shot the four leaders dead, the complaint said.

The slain leaders led the Liberation War of 1971 after the detention of Bangabandhu by the Pakistan Army. They were put behind bars soon after Bangabandhu and most of his family members were assassinated on 15 August 1975.

On November 4, Kazi Abdul Awal, the then Deputy Inspector General (Prisons), filed the FIR at the Lalbagh police station.

The investigation was entrusted to ABM Fazlul Karim, the then head of the station. He collected evidence from the scene after a magistrate made an inquest report on the bodies.

The compensation order, however, halted the investigation and trial for about 21 years until the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) resumed the investigation on 18 August 1996.

In 2004, a Dhaka court convicted 11 perpetrators.

In the verdict of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, the then Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha observed that the assassination of the four national leaders was part of a criminal conspiracy involving a very powerful state machinery.

On 30 April 2013, the supreme court upheld the verdict sentencing Muslimuddin, Marfat Ali Shah and Abdul Hashem Mridha to death; and life imprisonment for Khondaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haq Dalim, Noor, Rashed, Ahmed Shariful Hossain, Abdul Majed, Kismat Hasem and Nazmul Hossain.

In another development, former Minister of State for Home Affairs Tanjim Ahmad Sohel Taj, son of Bangladesh’s first Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmad, is to present a memorandum to Chief Counsel Muhammad Yunus today to support his demand that the state respect the On the day of the prison murder. as “National Day of Mourning”.

Sohel Taj wrote on his verified Facebook page: “November 3rd is a shameful day of prison killing. 49 years have passed, yet the four national heroes who successfully led the Liberation War and under whose leadership Bangladesh emerged as an independent sovereign state have received none. state recognition cannot be accepted!”

He also demands that the government declare April 10, the day Bangladesh’s first government was formed, as “Republic Day” and include in textbooks the names, contributions and biographies of all civil and military organizers, leaders, martyrs and fighters for freedom.

“I believe these three demands are just and logical and reflect the sincere wishes of all those who support independence and the War of Liberation. In line with this, my next schedule will be to stage a sit-in outside the InterContinental Hotel on November 3 at 3.30pm, followed by a march for the Chief Counsel’s submission,” he wrote yesterday.