Bangladesh’s Founding Father’s Assassin Hanged for 45-year-long Crime
The crime is finally resolved after 4.5 decades of waiting
Bangladesh’s history is less than a century old, and it is a nation that appears always to be fighting against some form of oppressor. The country can be compared to a childhood trauma that is so embedded into Bangladesh’s psyche; the people are unable to fathom any phenomenon than that of paranoia.
In truth, Bangladesh has never seen an example of effective, compassionate governing. That is still yet to be a palpable reality to Bangladeshi citizens. All the country has ever dealt with is subordination and ethnocentrism, which subsequently leads the Bengali mentality to act in brutal ways in civil cases.
Former military captain Abdul Majed, who was responsible for the assassination of Bangladesh’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was arrested Tuesday and hanged a few days later on Saturday, April 11th.
Majed had filed a clemency plea to seek mercy that was ultimately denied by current President M Abdul Hamid , and his execution took place soon after this rejection.
“The arrest was the biggest gift for Bangladesh this year,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan noted in Al Jazeera news.
Majed, a highly controversial character for the past several decades, confessed to his crime and made a public announcement regarding his role in the assassination that took place at the beginning of Bangladesh’s establishment as a nation. Reports were exposing that he was in hiding for many years in the state of India.
A trial court taking place in 1998 declared the death sentence for the dozen defendants involved in the assassination of Rahman and his family members on August 15, 1975.
The current Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, was the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and one of his two children that survived in the attack. Sheikh Hasina, and her sister Sheikh Rehana, were in Germany during the time of the assassination and were able to therefore survive.
Former President Ziaur Rahman was in favor of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and rewarded the killers, one of them being Abdul Majed, by appointing them in diplomatic positions outside of Bangladesh. Majed was appointed as the Bangladeshi ambassador of Senegal in 1980.
To clarify, Ziaur Rahman was not related to the founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Ziaur Rahman was an ex-army chief and the husband of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who is a sworn nemesis of Sheikh Hasina. Ziaur Rahman was ultimately killed by a military coup in 1981.
There are rumored to be at least two of the assassins hiding in the U.S. as well as Canada.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination was based upon a left-wing ideology; there was a formidable view that Rahman’s presidency was more on the authoritarian side that mimicked the war with the formerly West Pakistan. Many students and other small parties wished to strive for a more socialist government and operate more rationally than traditional wills.
Another fear opposers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was that Bangladesh might be returning to its subservient position in relation to India. It is true that India helped Bangladesh become an independent state, but could it be they were revolting from West Pakistan to return to their oppression by India that came before that?
This notion of Rahman becoming an authoritative president instigated enough fear and paranoia that military coups began organizing themselves. Although the fear is validated, fighting with more violence and bloodshed is fundamentally counterproductive.
One of these military groups was Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD). It began as a group of students from the Bangladesh Awami League, a major political party in Bangladesh.
Although it was an initial school of thought to question the government, it led to what would soon be a political massacre setting the tone of a political rivalry for decades to come.
Living in an ideal political state is a circumstance most countries have yet to experience. Hopefully, the execution of Majed will remind the Bangladeshi population that there is no escaping justice. With the current government taking this stand, the citizens may feel a new sense of nationalistic pride and set a loyal, compassionate tone for the next chapter of the country’s history.
