Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the Bangladesh government will seek retrial of former army officers responsible for killing four leaders who were part of the country’s government-in-exile during the 1971 freedom movement.
At a function on their death anniversary on Tuesday, Hasina accused opposition leader Khaleda Zia and her husband and slain former president Ziaur Rahman of ‘rewarding’ the killers.
The four leaders - 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 A H M Quamruzzaman, minister for home affairs, relief and rehabilitation - were killed inside the Dhaka Central Jail on November 3 in 1975, less than three months after the assassination of the country’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
After a trial that dragged for years, the high court last year gave death sentence to an army trooper, Risaldar (retd) Muslemuddin, who is on the run. It acquitted six former military personnel, including Syed Farook Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda and A K M Mohiuddin Ahmed of charges in what has come to be called the jail killing case.
The anniversary was observed even as trial of the same accused in the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, carried out in August 1975 during a military-led mutiny, entered the 23rd day before a bench of the supreme court.
Meanwhile, the government has beefed up security for five former army officers convicted of assassinating country’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, as their final appeal before the apex appellate division of the supreme court nears verdict.
The five - sacked lieutenant colonels Syed Farook Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, Mohiuddin Ahmed, AKM Mohiuddin and major Bazlul Huda - are lodged in country’s main central prison and the stepping up of the security is being done in the wake of threats that there may be attempts to free them.
Though the apex court has given no firm date to give its ruling, the verdict is likely to come soon, legal sources said.
The intensified security measures have been put in place after a recent bomb attack on a ruling lawmaker and a key prosecution lawyer Fazle Noor Taposh, whose father a former minister was also killed in a pre-dawn attack on Bangabandhu’s official residence in Dhanmandi area, thirty four years ago.
The Attorney-General Mahbubey Alam, who is also a key figure in the trial, has also received a death threat through
an e-mail. IANS |
