ZCZC
BSS-49
EXECUTION-ASSASSIN-1975 3RD LEAD
Bangabandhu’s killer Majed executed
(updates with more information)
DHAKA, April 12, 2020 (BSS) – Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman’s convicted killer sacked military captain Abdul Majed was
hanged after midnight overnight at Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj on the
outskirts of the capital.
“He was hanged at 12.01 am,” Law Minister Anisul Huq told BSS.
A prison official said the civil surgeon declared Majed dead at 12.15 am.
He said other concerned officials including a magistrate, police
representatives witnessed the execution as required by the law while
inspector general of prisons Brigadier General AKM Mostafa Kamal Pasha also
was present.
Pasha in a media briefing later in front of the jail complex said the body
would now be handed over Majed’s family members for burial.
“Officials concerned who were necessary to witness the execution under law
were present,” he said, adding that this was the first case of the execution
since Dhaka Central Jail was relocated in Keraniganj.
Jailor Mahbubul Islam later told BSS that the officials present included
Dhaka’s deputy commissioner who is the district magistrate as well, police
superintendent, the civil surgeon and the deputy inspector general of
prisons.
Defying a COVID-19 restriction, a number of people emerged in front of the
jail at midnight.
Majed was one of the remaining convicts of 1975 carnage when Bangabandhu
was killed along with most of his family members and several others.
The execution took place a day after Majed’s wife and four other relatives
met him at the jail.
President M Abdul Hamid rejected Majed’s mercy petition three days ago,
clearing ways for his execution hours after Majed sought clemency as the last
ditch efforts to save his neck.
Dhaka’s District and Sessions Judge’s Court earlier on that day issued
Majed’s death warrant after his identity as he was produced on the dock under
heavy security escort under a special arrangement amid COVID-19 nationwide
shutdown.
The same court with Golam Rasul being the judge issued the original
judgment in 1998 which was validated later by the High Court and eventually
by Supreme Court’s apex Appellate Division.
Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal earlier said the “self confessed
killer” was not only involved in Bangabandhu’s killing, but also took part in
the subsequent brutal killing of the four national leaders inside the high
security Dhaka Central Jail on November 3, 1975.
Majed was on the run for nearly two and half decades to evade justice and
after his arrest he said he was hiding in India’s West Bengal for the past 23
years and returned to Bangladesh last month.
He was handed down the death penalty along with 12 other ex-military
officers in 1998 and one of the six killers who were tried in absentia.
Five of the convicts were executed by now while one died a natural death as
he was on the run abroad.
In a dramatic event a specialised police unit last week arrested Majed from
near a shrine in the capital, after his return home for unknown reasons.
One of the prosecutors of Bangabandhu Murder Trial Mosharaf Hossain Kajol
in late 1990s, recalled that Majed had joined the 1975 putsch as a junior
officer of army’s the then lancer unit under Farook Rahman.
“Majed was a junior officer of the then lancer unit or tank regiment used
in committing the carnage under Farook,” he said.
Alongside staging the massacre at 32 Dhammondi, Kajol said, Majed
particularly unleashed the attack at the residence of the then water
resources minister Abdur Rab Serniabat killing him along with several family
members.
Months later, he said, Majed took part in the clandestine killing of the
four national leaders inside high security Dhaka Central Jail on November 3,
1975 night just when a counter coup dislodged the mudrers from Bangabhaban.
The previously hanged convicts were Farook Rahman, sacked lieutenant
colonel Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed (artillery) and
Mohiuddin Ahmed (lancer) and sacked major Bazlul Huda.
Another convict, sacked colonel Aziz Pasha, died a natural death in
Zimbabwe while he was on the run.
Farook Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, Mohiuddin Ahmed of artillery faced the
trial in the judge court in person.
Huda was extradited from Thailald soon after the trial court delivered the
judgment and years later and another convict Mohiuddin known as lancer
Mohiuddin was sent back from the United States.
BSS/SIR/SAS/MHR/SH/AR/0136 HRS