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 Rahman; Khandaker Abdur Rashid; Shariful Haque Dalim; Mohiuddin
Ahmed; and Rashed Chowdhury, along with A.K.M. Mohiuddin Ahmed, Bazlul
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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