After playing hide-and-seek for years, one of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman assassins executed on Sunday

When one of the killers of the Bangladesh’s father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Abdul Majed was hanged in Dhaka Central jail, on the midnight of April 12, the villagers of Batamara in Bhola district of Bangladesh celebrated his death.

“We wanted that Bangabandhu’s killers would be caught in Mujib Borsho, and it has been served to some extent,” Ali Miyan, an Awami League activist of Batamara said.

Majed was buried after he was hanged on the night of Saturday at his in-law's family graveyard in Sonargaon. The villagers of Sonargaon, a historic ancient city, mostly Awami League supporters, protested when the burial was undertaken as they did not like the murderer of Bangabandhu to be buried there.

"We have urged the local administration to remove the body of Majed from here. Otherwise, freedom fighters and the Awami League leaders, with the local people, will take steps in this regard," said freedom fighter Saiful Islam Bhuiyan, convener of the local Awami League unit, who led the protest against the burial.

This is the year of the birth centenary of the Bangabandhu which is being celebrated as “Sheikh Mujib Barsho” (centenary year of Sheikh Mujib and the Bangladesh). Law minister Anisul Huq said there was a reason for celebrations as the Sheikh Hasina government had promised to the people that all those who were involved in the killing of the Bangabandhu would be punished.

“The process has started with the hanging of Abdul Majed and now we are committed to bringing back the other fugitives who fled from the country. We would bring them back and they would all be hanged the way Abdul Majed was done. The country was more unburdened with the execution of Abdul Majed,” said Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan.

Majed was arrested in Dhaka’s Mirpur area when he was going on a rickshaw to the bus stand to catch a bus for his village. Majed lived in Kolkata and some villages of 24 Pargana districts. In Bangladesh, the intelligence agencies feel that Majed was able to spend 23 years in India because of the patronage given to him by the Indian intelligence. He got help to get an Indian passport and he travelled to Dhaka on March 15 or March 16.

“The government started the process to execute Majed since his death sentence was upheld by the appellate court,” said law minister Anisul Huq in a video message.

Majed, 72, who was in Bangladesh Army in August 1975, was posted at a diplomatic mission in Senegal on retirement and he also served the government until 1996, when the Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina reassumed power after 21 years.

Abdul Majed was a captain in the Bangladesh army and he was convicted for his role in the killing of Bangabandhu and also in the jail killing of top leaders of the Awami Leauge.

Majed took retirement from the Bangladesh army as a Captain in 1980 and joined the civil administration as a Deputy Secretary, later promoted to the rank of a secretary. He disappeared from Bangladesh in 1997 after Sheikh Hasina, a daughter of Sheikh Mujib, became the Prime Minister.

“In August 1975, Majed as a serving officer and other officers of the Bangladesh army looted weapons from the Bengal Lancers armoury. On 15 August 1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members were killed. Majed and the other officers met at the Bangabhaban and created a new government with Khandakar Mustaque in charge. He was part of the team that killed Mujib and his brother-in-law,” said Subir Nandi Das, a lawyer of Dhaka.

The conspiring officers did not spare Bangabandhu's wife, sons, daughters-in-law and other relatives. Bangabandhu's daughters Sheikh Hasina, now the country's Prime Minister, and Sheikh Rehana survived the massacre as they were abroad at that time.

On 2 November 1975, Majed and the other army officers involved in the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman met Khandakar Mustaque and there a decision was made to kill four national leaders of Bangladesh Awami League. The leaders were Abdul hasnat Qamarruzaman, Md Mansur Ali, Syed nazrul Islam and Tajuddin Ahamad. He was sentenced to death for the assassination of Sheikh Mujib by a trial court. But by then Majed had fled to India and was living in hiding.

On 19 November 2009, Majed's death sentence was confirmed by the Bangladesh Supreme Court along with 12 other convicts. Five of the convicts were executed on 27 January 2010. They were: AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, Bazlul Huda, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Syed Farooq Rahman and Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan. Another convict Abdul Aziz Pasha, who had fled to Zimbabwe, died there.

In 2015, the government of Bangladesh confiscated his properties in Bangladesh, which included 1.35 acres of land. In August 2008, he was separately sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the jail killing case.

Mujib was killed in a revolt by young army officers on August 15, 1975. The exact cause of the revolt was never established in the ensuing political turmoil. Many in the country believe the rebels opposed what they called Mujib’s authoritarian style and his attempts to set up one-party rule.

“Political assassinations and military coups need long preparation, careful planning and execution. The involvement of a few insiders and the support of foreign powers make things easier. In cases where the victim is someone like the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the task is more challenging. The killers of Bangabandhu planned meticulously and acted professionally.

Unfortunately, to make things easier for the killers, Bangabandhu himself never believed any harm could be caused to him or his family. On a few occasions, some well-wishers of Bangabandhu tried to warn him, but he brushed their warnings aside, saying that his own people could never cause him any harm.

Khandaker Moshtaque, who was the Foreign Minister in Tajuddin's cabinet in 1971 and the person who became the President after the killing of Bangabandhu was a mole within Bangabandhu's cabinet. Ironically, Moshtaque was one of Mujib's most trusted lieutenants.

The main conspiracy to assassinate Bangabandhu was hatched inside Dhaka cantonment by pseudo freedom fighters like Khandaker Abdur Rashid (a close relative of Khandaker Moshtaque), Farookh Rahman, Shariful Hoque Dalim and others. General Zia, Deputy Chief of Army Staff, whose role during the war was always under scrutiny, was in the loop of the conspirators though Bangabandhu loved him as his own son. Zia was unhappy as he was not made the Army Chief immediately after liberation.

In March, Abdur Rashid and Farookh Rahman discussed their plan to overthrow Bangabandhu with Zia. He gave the green signal and said that as a senior officer he could not directly get involved with their plan, but if they wished, they could go ahead. “Zia's duty was to report this incident to his superiors but he never did that, as he wanted to be one of the beneficiaries of Mujib's overthrow,” observed Abdul Mannan, a political analyst, who is now chairman of University Grant Commission of Bangladesh in Dhaka.

The government installed after the revolt issued an ordinance in November 1975 granting immunity to the killers. Many who participated in the bloody coup were assigned abroad to diplomatic jobs by military rulers presidents Ziaur Rahman and Hossain Mohammad Ershad.

Some political analysts and historians say the leaders were motivated by sympathy with those who had dislodged Mujib and his party, and tried to forge unity among anti-Mujib forces, including opponents of Bangladesh independence from Pakistan. Zia and Ershad also wanted to protect their own positions from coups.

Mujib’s daughter Sheikh Hasina was elected Prime Minister in 1996 and vowed to put her father’s killers on trial. Her government revoked the indemnity ordinance in 1996 and cleared the way for a trial of the assassins and coup leaders, beginning with a police complaint identifying 20 accused.

The law minister, in a video message released on late Sunday, said that it was the biggest challenge for them to nab and execute convicted fugitive killers of Bangabandu.

"We promised that we will bring back all fugitive convicted Bangabandhu killers and execute them. It was a sigh of relief that Majed was nabbed and executed. We are reiterating our promise that we will bring back all fugitive killers and execute them,” he added.

The Sheikh Hasina government was giving the highest effort to bring back all fugitive killers of Bangabandhu.

Asaduzzaman also said that the execution of Majed is a gift from the Prime Minister in the Mujib Year.

He said the government had specific information about two fugitives. "All five fugitive (killers of Bangabandhu) will be brought back and executed," he said.

To locate and bring them back, a taskforce comprising of ministers and high officials of the foreign, law, and home ministries was formed in 2010. Rashed was traced in the US and Noor in Canada.

Earlier, Bangladesh government had made global appeals in bilateral, regional, and international forums to track down the culprits.