Assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

In the 1970 Pakistani general election, Sheikh Mujib's party, the Awami League (previously known as the Awami Muslim League), won the majority of the seats in the Pakistani National Assembly. They won 167 of the 169 seats in East Pakistan, which would later become Bangladesh after it seceded from West Pakistan. Despite Pakistan's military government delaying the handover of power, Mujib's house had become the de facto head of government in East Pakistan by March. At the start of the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, he was arrested in his home by Pakistani soldiers. Later that year the provisional government of the Bangladeshi rebellion, the Mujibnagar Government, formed on 10 April and made Mujib its head and also the leader of Bangladeshi armed forces.[2] Following the defeat of Pakistani forces on 16 December 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was released from custody from Pakistan in London on 22 December 1971 and flew to India followed by Bangladesh. Mujib led the government as Prime Minister of Bangladesh for three years after Bangladesh gained independence.[2]

Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini or JRB was a highly controversial political militia formed in 1972 and was loyal to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.[3] Although it was set up to recover weapons from civilians, it did serve to protect Mujib's government from being overthrown.[4] Its 30,000 workers intimidated and tortured the Awami League opponents in various ways. In the 1965-6 budget, the Mujib government increased the allocation for the Rakshi Bahini to 13%, which was 50-60 per cent during the Pakistan period.[5][6] This dissatisfaction is also considered as one of the reasons for Mujibur's assassination.

Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani was given lucrative positions in the Government formed by Sheikh Mujibur. When private trade with India was banned to slow inflation, Fazlul Haque actively engaged in it with Mujibur's blessings. This was seen as an attempt by Mujibur to form a dynasty.[7]

Near the end of 1973 Sheikh Kamal was involved in a shootout in which he was inflicted with bullet injuries. Multiple claims have been made as to how the shootout occurred. Many people claim that this shootout occurred during the attempted robbery of a bank by Sheikh Kamal and his friends. However, a retired major general of the Bangladesh Army claimed that it was actually a case of friendly fire. Near the end of 1973, Bangladeshi security forces received intelligence that the left-wing revolutionary activist Siraj Sikder and his insurgents were going to launch coordinated attacks around Dhaka. Police and other security officers were on full alert and patrolling the streets of Dhaka in plainclothes. Sheikh Kamal and his friends were armed and also patrolling the city in a microbus looking for Siraj Sikder. When the microbus was in Dhanmondi the police mistook Sheikh Kamal and his friends to be insurgents and opened fire on them, thus injuring Sheikh Kamal.[8] However, it is also claimed that Sheikh Kamal and his friends were in Dhanmondi to test drive a new car that his friend Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku had bought recently. Since Dhaka was under heavy police patrolling, police special forces under the command of the then city SP Mahamuddin Bir Bikrom opened fire on the car thinking that the passengers were miscreants.[9]

A left-wing insurgency from 1972 to 1975 is widely held responsible for creating the conditions that led up to the assassination.[10][11][12] In 1972, a leftist group named the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) was founded from a split in the Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of the Bangladesh Awami League.[13] The JSD, through its armed wing Gonobahini led by Colonel Abu Taher and politician Hasanul Haq Inu, began a political massacre of government supporters, Awami League members, and police.[14][15] Their campaign contributed to a breakdown of law and order in the country[14] and paved the way for the assassination of Mujib.[16] Hasanul Huq Inu later held the office of the Minister of Information under Sheikh Hasina's Second and Third cabinets.

In 1974, Gazi Golam Mostafa kidnapped Major Shariful Haque Dalim and his wife from the Dhaka Ladies Club after an argument. It was Dalim's cousin's wedding reception in the Dhaka Ladies Club. Dalim's only brother-in-law Bappi (his wife Nimmi's brother) was attending from Canada. Mostafa's son occupied the chair in the row behind Bappi and pulled Bappi's hair from the back. Bappi scolded the boy for his behavior and told him not to sit on the row behind him anymore. Mostafa's sons (who were close friends of Sheikh Kamal) and some associates forcefully abducted Dalim, Nimmi, the groom's mother, and two of Dalim's friends (both of whom were distinguished freedom fighters) in Microbuses owned by the Red Crescent. Mostafa was taking them to the Rakhi Bahini headquarters but later took them to the residence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.[17][18][19] Mujib mediated a compromise between them and made Mostafa apologize to Nimmi. When news of the abduction spread, the 1st Bengal Lancers ransacked Mostafa's and took his whole family prisoner. They also set up check posts all over the city searching for Major Dalim and the abductees. Some officers lost their jobs as a result. The officers involved, including Shariful Haque Dalim, were later orchestrators of the coup on 15 August 1975 and the assassination of Sheikh Mujib.[19][20][21]

Siraj Sikder was contemporary leading Bangladeshi maoist leader, in Mujib's regime. Born in 1944, he obtained an engineering degree from the East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology (now BUET) in 1967.[22] While he was a student he became a member of East Pakistan Student Union. In 1967, he was elected vice-president of the central committee of Student Union and later that year he joined the C & B Department of the government as an engineer. Later he left his job to start a private engineering company.[22] On 8 January 1968, along with like-minded activists, Sikder formed a clandestine organisation named Purba Bangla Sramik Andolon (East Bengal Workers Movement EBWM) with an objective to lead a struggle against the revisionism of the existing "Communist" organisations and to form a revolutionary Communist Party. This initiative brought forward a thesis that East Bengal is a colony of Pakistan and that the principal contradiction in the society is between the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and feudalists of Pakistan on one hand, and the people of East Bengal on the other hand. Only the independence struggle to form an "independent, democratic, peaceful, non-aligned, progressive" People's Republic of East Bengal, free also from the oppression of US imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and Indian Expansionism could lead the society forward towards socialism and communism. In late 1968, Sikder left the job to establish the Mao Tse Tung Research Center in Dhaka but it was later closed down by the Pakistani government. Sikder became a lecturer at the Technical Training College in Dhaka.[22] In the meantime of Bangladesh War of Independence, at a liberated base area named Pearabagan at Bhimruly in Jhalokati District in the southern part of the country, on 3 June 1971, Sikder founded a new party named Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party (Proletarian Party of East Bengal) by ideology of Marxism and Mao Tsetung Thought (not "Maoism", during the 1960s the followers of Mao-line used to identify their ideology as Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought). At the beginning of the war, he went to Barisal and he declared that as a free living space and making it his base attempted to initiate his revolution throughout other places. After the Independence of Bangladesh he turned against the Sheikh Mujib government.[23] On April 1973, he formed Purba Banglar Jatiya Mukti Front(East Bengal United Liberation Front) and declared war on Bangladesh Government.[22] Under his leadership, the Sarbahara party carried out attacks against money lenders and landlords.[24] In 1975, Sikder was arrested at Hali Shahar in Chittagong by the intelligence force of the government. He was killed in police custody on 3 January 1975 on his way from Dhaka Airport to the Rakkhi Bahini Camp at Savar.[25][22] Anthony Mascarenhas narrated in his book "Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood" that, Siraj's sister Shamim Sikder blamed Mujib for the killing of his brother.

Sheikh Mujib was later elected President of Bangladesh and established a national unity government, the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), on 7 June 1975 by banning all political parties and independent press. Mujib named the reform as Second Revolution. Although the BAKSAL was intended to bring stability to Bangladesh and uphold law and order, it engendered hostility among the bureaucracy, military, and civil society. Opposition groups, as well as some of Mujib's supporters, challenged Mujib's authoritarian, one-party state.[26] The period of the BAKSAL's one-party rule was marked by widespread censorship and abuse of the judiciary, as well as opposition from the general populace, intellectuals, and all other political groups.[27] The country was in chaos: corruption was rampant, and food shortages and poor distribution led to a disastrous famine, where approximately 300,000 to 4,500,000 (or 1 to 1.5 million) people died.[28] Many analysts claimed this famine as one of the major cause for killing Sheikh Mujib.[29][30] Nationalisation of industry failed to yield any tangible progress. Not only was the government weak and with no clear goals, but the country was also nearly bankrupt. In the Far Eastern Economic Review, journalist Lawrence Lifschultz wrote in 1974 that "the corruption and malpractices and plunder of national wealth" in Bangladesh were "unprecedented".[27]

The army was already dissatisfied with Sheikh Mujib for discriminating them with JRB. However, Anthony Mascarenhas wrote in his book Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood that, he cited a specific factor behind the final outcry as influential: Mozammel, a contemporary Awami League youth leader from Tongi and the chairman of Tongi Awami League, seized a car of a newlywed housewife, killed her driver and husband, abducted her and gang-raped her and three days later, her deadbody was found in the road near a bridge of Tongi. Mozammel was arrested by a leader of a squadron of the Bengal Lancer named Major Nasser and handed over to the police, but police released him immediately. At that time, many people thought that he was released from the punishment of that crime only with the intervention of Sheikh Mujib. This incident increased the dissatisfaction against Sheikh Mujib in the Army, specially in Major Faruque and acted as one of the prominently last-minute influences behind his assassination.[31][32]

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 a threat to Bangladesh's military.[33] According to Anthony Mascarenhas, Faruque offered Major Ziaur Rahman indirectly to take part in the plan and tried to convince him, but Zia cleverly avoided the matter. According to Farooq, Zia's gesture meant: "I'm sorry, I don't want to get involved in this. If you junior officers want to do something, you should do it yourself. Don't drag me into this."[31] However, the killer Lt. Col. Khandaker Abdur Rashid's wife and accused Jobaida Rashid said in his deposition, "Criticism was happened among Army officers for providing more facilities by forming Rakkhi Bahini besides the army. I hear these things from Farooq. Major Farooq has been in touch with General Zia since childhood. He was Zia's former acquaintance. One night Major Farooq returned from Zia's house and told my husband that Zia wanted to be president if the government changed. Zia said, "It is a success to come to me. If it is a failure then do not involve me. It is not possible to change the government by keeping Sheikh Mujib alive.”[34] Major General (retd) M Khalilur Rahman (then director of BDR) testified, "Some army officers became divided as General Safiullah was not made the army chief despite being a senior on the basis of General Zia's number. I have heard that General Zia will retire from the army and be sent abroad as an ambassador." At one point after the swearing in of the cabinet, Major Rashid introduced me to his wife. I thought Major Rashid was a little proud and said, “She is my wife. My wife is the mastermind behind what we have done."[34] The assassins considered the possible causes of the failure, and for the upcoming after-period after Mujib's assassination, they decided to use a well-wisher from Mujib's Awami League and a person who could be removed in time if desired, in order to curb the possible Indian intervention, the Awami League's vengeful armed opposition, the possible increasing arbitrariness of the anti-Awami League and to temporarily control the situation. After some time of searching, an Awami League cabinet minister under Mujib's government, Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, agreed to take over the presidency. Journalist Lawrence Lifschultz paints an alternate picture of the conspiracy, however, that implicates Mostaq and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In his book Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution, he wrote that the "CIA station chief in Dhaka, Philip Cherry, was actively involved in the killing of the Father of the Nation—Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman."[35][36][37] It is alleged that the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Kazi Mohammed Shafiullah, and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence Air Vice Marshal, Aminul Islam Khan, were aware of the conspiracy.[38] Major Faruque told Anthony Mascarenhas that he carried out the assassination following the direction of Andha Hafiz, a blind saint from Chittagong who was known having supernatural powers and his wife Farida helped him communicate with the saint. The saint entitled as a pir told him to carry out the killing in the interest of Islam, advised him to abandon personal interests and carry out the killing at the right time.[31][39] However, Andha Hafiz later denied the claim in an interview with the weekly Bichinta.[40]

In the early hours of 15 August 1975, the conspirators divided into four groups. One group, consisting of members of the Bengal Lancers of the First Armoured Division and 535th Infantry Division under Major Huda, attacked Mujib's residence.[41] Correspondent for Anandabazar Patrika Sukharanjan Dasgupta, who described the Bangladesh Liberation War in Dhaka until 1974, writes in his book Midnight Massacre in Dacca that "the exact details of the massacre will always remain shrouded in mystery."[42] He goes on to say, however, that the army platoon protecting the president's house offered no resistance. Sheikh Kamal, son of Mujib, was shot at the reception area on the ground floor.[43] Meanwhile, Mujib was asked to resign and allowed time to consider his choice. He telephoned Colonel Jamil Uddin Ahmad, the new Chief of Military Intelligence. When Jamil arrived and ordered the troops back to the barracks, he was gunned down at the gate of the residence. After he refused to resign, Mujib was shot and killed.[42]

Other people killed in the attack were Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib, wife of Mujib, who was killed upstairs; Sheikh Nasser, younger brother of Mujib, who was killed in a lavatory; several servants of Mujib, who were also killed in lavatories; Sheikh Jamal, the second son of Mujib and an army officer; ten-year-old Sheikh Russel, the youngest son of Mujib; and two daughters-in-law of Mujib.[44]

In Dhanmondi, two other groups of soldiers killed Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani, Mujib's nephew and a leader of the Awami League along with his pregnant wife, Arzu Moni, and Abdur Rab Serniabat, Mujib's brother-in-law. They also killed a minister of the government and thirteen of his family members on Mintu Road.[45][46]

The fourth and most powerful group was sent towards Savar to repel the expected counter-attack by the security forces stationed there. After a brief fight and the loss of eleven men, the security forces surrendered.[47]

Four of the founding leaders of the Awami League, first Prime Minister of Bangladesh Tajuddin Ahmed, former Prime Minister Mansur Ali, former Vice President Syed Nazrul Islam, and former Home Minister A. H. M. Qamaruzzaman, were arrested. Three months later, on 3 November 1975, they were murdered in Dhaka Central Jail.[48]

On the morning of the assassination, the then Lieutenant Colonel Amin Ahmed Chowdhury entered the house of General Ziaur Rahman and found out on the radio that President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been assassinated,He described the incident, "General Zia is shaving on one side but not on the other. Came running in the sleeping suit, he asked Shafaat Jamil, "What happened, Shafaat?" Shafaat replied, "Apparently two battalions staged a coup. We don't know yet what happened outside. We hear the announcement on the radio that the president is dead." Then General Zia said, "So what? Let vice-president take over. We have nothing to do with politics. Get your troops ready. Uphold the constitution."[49][32]

Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad assumed the presidency, and Major General Ziaur Rahman became the new Chief of Army Staff. The leading conspirators were all given high government ranks. They were all later toppled by yet another coup led by Brigadier General Khaled Mosharraf on 3 November 1975. Mosharraf himself was killed during a counter-revolt four days later on 7 November, which freed Major General Ziaur Rahman in power and was brought in to bring law and order.

Major Syed Faruque Rahman, Rashid, and the other army officers were promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Nevertheless, they were exiled to Libya, China, Rhodesia, Canada, and other countries, although they were given several diplomatic posts in Bangladeshi missions abroad. Lieutenant Colonel (Rtd.) Syed Faruque Rahman later returned and founded the Bangladesh Freedom Party in 1985 and took part in the presidential election in 1987 against the military ruler Lieutenant General Hussain Mohammad Ershad but lost that election in a landslide.

Mujib's two daughters, Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, were in West Germany at the time of his assassination.[50] After the coup, they flew back to India, instead of Bangladesh and took refuge with the Indian government. Sheikh Hasina lived in New Delhi in a self-imposed exile before returning to Bangladesh on 17 May 1981.[51]

The military decided not to court-martial the military officers who masterminded and participated in the coup. A. F. M. Mohitul Islam, personal assistant to Sheikh Mujib and a survivor of the attack on his house, attempted to file a case against the military officers, but the police slapped him in the face and refused to file the report.[52] The assassination conspirators could not be tried in a court of law because of the Indemnity Act passed by the government under President Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad. When the Awami League, led by Mujib's daughter Sheikh Hasina, won elections in 1996, the act was repealed. The Bangabandhu murder trial began with the case filing by A. F. M. Mohitul Islam.[53]

Colonel (Rtd.) Syed Faruque Rahman was arrested from his Dhaka home, and Colonel (Rtd.) Bazlul Huda was brought back from Bangkok, where he was serving a prison sentence for shoplifting as part of a criminal exchange program between Thailand and Bangladesh. Lieutenant Colonel Mohiuddin Ahmed was in active military service when he was arrested. Colonel (Rtd.) Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan had been appointed to active diplomatic service by previous Prime Minister of Bangladesh Begum Khaleda Zia, but he returned to Bangladesh and was arrested when he was recalled by the foreign ministry. Colonel (Rtd.) Abdur Rashid and other accused individuals had already left Bangladesh, however. They believed that the upcoming 1996 general election would be an Awami League victory, which would result in the repealing of the Indemnity Act and their subsequent arrest. Colonel (Rtd.) Rashid now reportedly shuttles between Pakistan and Libya. All these men were also involved in Jail Killing Day on 3 November 1975, when four Awami League officials were assassinated.

The first trial ended on 8 November 1998. The District and Session Judge of Dhaka, Mohammad Golam Rasul, ordered the death sentence by firing squad to fifteen out of the twenty accused of conspiring in the assassination. The sentences were not carried out immediately, because five of the convicts sought to file appeals in the high court division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. The Supreme Court, consisting of Justice Mohammad Ruhul Amin and Justice A. B. M. Khairul Haque, who was the former Chief Justice of Bangladesh, gave a divisive verdict. Senior Justice Amin acquitted five out of the original fifteen accused, whereas Junior Justice Haque upheld the lower court's verdict. A verdict from a third judge became necessary. Later, Justice Mohammad Fazlul Karim condemned twelve out of original fifteen, including two acquitted in Justice Amin's verdict.

One of the convicts, Major (Rtd.) Aziz Pasha died in Zimbabwe on 2 June 2001.[54] Although the five accused appealed to the appellate division of the Supreme Court, their decision remained pending from August 2001. Several judges refused to hear the case, which meant the government lacked the three judges required to hold a hearing session. On 18 June 2007, one of the conspirators who had been sentenced to death, Major (Rtd.) A. K. M. Mohiuddin Ahmed was extradited to Bangladesh from the United States following a series of failed attempts to gain asylum or permanent residency in the United States. On 7 August 2007, the murder case hearings resumed after a six-year delay.[55] The appellate division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh gave its verdict on 19 November 2009,[56] after a five-member special bench, headed by Justice Mahammad Tafazzal Islam, spent 29 days hearing the petition filed by the convicted.[57][58]

The appeal of the convicts was rejected, and the death sentence was upheld.[59] Before the verdict, approximately 12,000 extra policemen were deployed to guard strategic buildings, including the Supreme Court building, to prevent disruption of the proceedings by the convicted men's supporters.[59] Nevertheless, they were blamed by the government for a grenade attack on one of the prosecution lawyers in October 2009, although no one has been charged yet.[59]

Captain (Rtd.) Qismet Hashem, Captain (Rtd.) Nazmul Hossain Ansar, and Major (Rtd.) Abdul Majid were acquitted through the high court division and appellate division verdicts and now live in Canada.[60] Taheruddin Thakur, former Information Minister and one of the suspects, was cleared during the Hasina Government, acquitted in trial, and released. He died naturally in 2009.[57] Conspirators Major (Rtd.) Bazlul Huda, Lieutenant Colonel (Rtd.) Mohiuddin Ahmed, Major (Rtd.) A. K. M. Mohiuddin Ahmed, Colonel (Rtd.) Syed Faruque Rahman, and Colonel (Rtd.) Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan was executed on 28 January 2010.[61][62] On 11 April 2020 Abdul Majed was executed by hanging. He had returned to Bangladesh the previous month after being a fugitive for 23 years.[63]