A government task force has failed to lay its hands on six convicted killers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, even 15 years after a court sentenced them to death.
The task force, led by law minister Shafique Ahmed, however, has managed to trace the whereabouts of two of the absconders – former Lt Col SHMB Noor Chowdhury and former Lt Col Rashed Chowdhury. While Noor Chowdhury is presently staying in Canada, Rashed Chowdhury is in the USA. “We have started legal proceedings to get the two convicts extradited from Canada and the USA so that the court verdict against them can be carried out,” the law minister told The Independent. He, however, added: “We have not been able to trace the four others.”
Sources in the law and foreign ministries said the governments of Canada and the USA had reservations on the sentences against Noor Chowdhury and Rashed Chowdhury, and therefore were going slow on handing them over to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is banking on diplomatic channels and other means to ferret out the four fugitives – sacked Lt Col Khondokar Abdul Rashid, Major (retd) Shariful Haque Dalim, Capt (retd) Abdul Majed and Risalder (retd) Mosleh Uddin.
A foreign ministry official said Bangladeshi missions have provided photographs and details of the killers to governments in host countries, including the USA, Canada, India, Pakistan, Libya, Senegal and South Africa. All the main airports and police forces in those countries have been alerted to look out for the four fugitives, the official added.
Sources said a deputy director-level officer from an intelligence agency visited India recently to trace Abdul Majed and Mosleh Uddin. The government had also signed an extradition treaty with India to bring back the convicted killers. “But the authorities in the neighbouring country have not yet passed any information on the two killers,” said an official, requesting anonymity.
The other two, Khondokar and Dalim, are thought to be hiding either in Pakistan, Libya or Zimbabwe. Another fugitive, sacked Lt Col Aziz Pasha, died in Zimbabwe. The Sheikh Hasina-led government had formed the task force in 2010 for bringing back the fugitive killers. It has so far held at least 15 inter-ministerial meetings, but without much success.
“It is now virtually impossible to trace and bring back the fugitives in the remaining two months of the present government’s tenure,” a source said.
In a historic judgment on November 8, 1998, a Dhaka court had sentenced 15 former army officers to death by a firing squad for assassinating Bangabandhu, along with most of his family members on August 15, 1975.
The 15 who were sentenced to death were Col (retd) Syed Farooqur Rahman, Lt Col (retd) Sulatan Shariyar Rashid Khan, Lt Col (retd) Muhiuddin Khan, Col (retd) Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Lt Col (retd) Aziz Pasha, Maj (retd) Shariful Haq Dalim, Maj (retd) Bazlul Huda, Maj (retd) Noor Chowdhury, Maj (retd) Mohiuddin, Maj (retd) Rashed Chowhury, Maj (retd) Ahmed Sharful Hasan, Capt (retd) Majed, Lt (retd) Nazmul Ansar, Risalder (retd) Osleuddin and Capt (retd) Kismm. Of them, Farookur Rahman, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Shahriar Rashid Khan, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Bazlul Huda were hanged on January 28, 2010.
However, district and sessions judge Kazi Golam Rasul had acquitted four others for lack of evidence. While three of those acquitted were former army officers, the fourth, Taheruddin Thakur, was the only civilian accused in the case. Thakur was the information minister in the Mujib government at the time of the coup. In his 171-page judgment, the judge had said that the 15 convicts deserved no mercy. “They had not only shot and killed the then President Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family members, but showed arrogance after the killings. They should be executed publicly,” said the judgment. Describing the assassination of Mujib as a brutal and harmful act not only for the country but also for society, the judge said if the death sentences could not be carried out through the firing squad, it should be done in the conventional way. The judge said those who have been given the death sentence can move the higher court against the judgment. Most of those accused went into hiding after Sheikh Hasina led her Awami League back to power in the 1996 general election.
Courtesy of The Independent
