CANADA IS SHELTERING MURDERER OF BANGABANDHU

SARASIJ MAJUMDER

Bangladesh is trying to bring back two of the fugitive army officers who were involved in shooting dead the country's founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and members of his family in cold blood at their Dhaka house on August 15, 1975.

Bangladesh's Law and Justice Minister Anisul Huq, in an exclusive interview with PTI, said that his country was negotiating a return of two "self-confessed killers" of Sheikh Mujib - Rashed Chowdhury from the US and SHBM Noor Chowdhury from Canada.

"While the whereabouts of Major Shariful Haque Dalim, (a principal plotter behind the killing) is still not known, we know that Col Rashed Chowdhury is in the USA and Noor Chowdhury, another of the coup plotter involved in the killing of Bangabandhu is in Canada. We are still in talks with the US on getting the killer officer back," said Mr Huq.

As per WIKIPEDIA, Dalim was demoted and dismissed from the army. In 1996 the Awami League government, led by Sheikh Hasina began prosecution process for the case. He lives in Pakistan and has a Kenyan passport. He has business interests in Africa.[10] He was sentenced to death in absentia.[11] He currently has an Interpol warrant out on him.

Canada has laws which do not permit a person facing a death sentence at home to be extradited and this has proven to be a hurdle.

"They killed the father of the nation and 17 members of his family...Given the heinous nature of the crime, we have tried to convince Canada to return Noor Chowdhury," the minister said.

CONSPIRATOTORS

Major Syed Faruque RahmanKhandaker Abdur RashidShariful Haque DalimMohiuddin Ahmed; and Rashed Chowdhury, along with A.K.M. Mohiuddin AhmedBazlul Huda, and S.H.M.B Noor Chowdhury (three majors in the Bangladesh Army and veterans of the Bangladesh Liberation War), planned to topple the government and establish a military government of their own. They were previously part of the opposition to BAKSAL and viewed the government as too subservient to India and as a threat to Bangladesh's military.

THE GRAVITY OF CRIME

The gruesome killing of Sheikh Mujib and his entire family save his two daughters - Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana - who were travelling abroad, at their Dhanmondi bungalow on India's Independence Day had 28-years-ago shaken the entire world.

"They are self-confessed killers and the available evidence is conclusive of their crime," Mr Huq, a London-trained senior advocate of the Bangladesh Supreme Court said.

They chose August 15, India's Independence Day, to carry out the coup.

Four groups of soldiers led by the coup plotters entered Dhaka in the early hours of August 15, 1975. The first group entered Sheikh Mujib's house and killed him after an argument and then went on to slaughter all members of the family as well as personal staff present, including a pregnant daughter-in-law of the family.

Other groups took over the radio station, key government buildings and disarmed security forces stationed at Savar in the city.

Four Awami League leaders - the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh Tajuddin Ahmed, another former PM Mansur Ali, a former Vice President Syed Nazrul Islam and former home minister AHM Qamaruzzaman - were also arrested and incarcerated in Dhaka jail, and later murdered in prison.

Bangladesh consequently marks August 15, as a national day of mourning.

"We have relentlessly tried to track down and bring to justice the killers of Bangabandhu," said Mr Huq. Two years ago, Abdul Majed, a former captain in the Bangladesh army and one of the killers, was hanged after being brought back from abroad.

Ten years before that, five other convicts -- Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed -- were executed in January 2010, while a fifth Aziz Pasha died in Zimbabwe.

OUTCOME:-- The assassination changed the course of politics in Bangladesh, and the ramifications of which are still being felt across South Asia. Bangladesh has become from a SECULAR to a MUSLIM state.

 

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