Four Bangabandhu assassins still untraced
M Humayun Kabir: The locations of four among the six assassins of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman have yet to be traced in the nine years since they were sentenced to death.
The negotiations have yet to bear fruit to extradite the two other convicts, who have been located abroad, home to face the penalty, reports bdnews24.com.
Bangladesh will observe National Mourning Day tomorrow to commemorate the killing of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
A group of renegade army officers brutally killed Bangabandhu and most of his family members on August 15, 1975.
Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, daughters of Bangabandhu, fortunately survived the assassination as they were abroad at the time.
Of the 12 convicts, five were hanged on Jan 28 in 2010, one died of natural causes and six more are absconding.
The six convicts still at large are Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, M Rashed Chowdhury, SHMB Noor Chowdhury, Abdul Majed and Risaldar Moslemuddin. Interpol has issued a red notice against them.
The National Central Bureau (NCB), the Bangladesh division of Interpol confirmed that Noor Chowdhury is currently residing in Canada, while M Rashed Chowdhury is in the US.
The home ministry and the foreign ministry have been working on the issue, said NCB Assistant Inspector General of Police Mahiul Alam.
They are aware of the location of Noor Chowdhury and M Rashed Chowdhury but have no new information about their extradition, Mahiul toldbdnews24.com.
“We heard a while back that Rashed Chowdhury had moved to Canada from the United States; however, Canada denied that he was there. We were assured that Rashed hasn’t moved to Canada.”
Mahiul said the government is negotiating for the extradition of both convicts.
Among the remaining four convicts, some initial information suggests Risaldar Moslemuddin has been staying in India, Abdur Rashid and Shariful Haque Dalim are reportedly moving between Pakistan and Libya while Abdul Majed is reported to be staying in Senegal, he said.
All these locations are ‘likely’ to be the present residences of the convicts, he said, adding that law enforcers are keeping regular contact with those countries although nothing is ‘confirmed’ yet.
Five of the 12 killers — Syed Faruque Rahman, Sultan Shahariar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, Mohiuddin Ahmed and AKM Mohiuddin — were hanged on January 27, 2010. Another, Abdul Aziz Pasha, died in Zimbabwe in 2001.
The initial trial of the assassins of Bangabandhu and his family was stopped through an Indemnity Ordinance which saved the self-proclaimed killers.
Awami League returned to power in 1996 and abrogated the ordinance, paving the way to bringing the killers to justice.
But the case proceedings came to a near halt after the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami coalition formed government in 2001.
The trial was restarted in 2009 after the Awami League returned to power.