Today is Jail Killing Day. It is a sad and scandalous day in the history of Bengal. On this day in 1975, in the Dhaka Central Jail, Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, M.P. Munsur Ali and HM Kamaruzzaman were brutally killed.
After the brutal assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family on the black night of August 15, 1975, killing these four national leaders is an inevitable act of deceitful murderers. Because after the assassination of Bangabandhu, these four leaders rejected the offer to join the cabinet formed by the assassins. Due to which they were arrested and imprisoned during the rule of traitor Khandaker Mushtaq Ahmed. At one point the assassins were sent there to kill them. Before they could be killed, Mushtaq instructed them to help the killers. The assailants went inside and shot the four leaders together and stabbed them to death with bayonets.
The purpose of killing these four national leaders was to destroy the victory and consciousness of the liberation war of Bangladesh.
It is a day when a brutality of the reprehensible killings took place when one realises that in prison, that is State custody, four defenseless public leaders were shot and bayoneted to death in the most despicable manner by berserk elements enjoying regime patronage.
History speaks. The day after the jail killing, the then Deputy Inspector General of Prisons (DIG Prison) Kazi Abdul Awal filed a murder case with Lalbagh Police Station. However, the process of this trial was kept secret for 21 long years. When the Awami League came to power in 1996, it started the process of reviving the case. On October 15, 1996, the police filed a chargesheet against 23 people. Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge on October 20, 2004. Matiur Rahman ruled in the case. The verdict sentenced three to death and 12 to life imprisonment. The convicts were Risaldar Moslem Uddin, Dafadar Marfat Ali Shah and Dafadar Abul Hashem Mridha. The convicts are Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, MHMB Nur Chowdhury, AM Rashed Chowdhury, Abdul Majed, Ahmad Shariful Hossain, Kismat Hossain, Nazmul Hossain Ansar, Syed Faruk Rahman, Shahriar Rashid, Bazlul Huda and K. M Mohiuddin.
Former ministers KM Obaidur Rahman, Shah Moazzem Hossain, Nurul Islam Manzur and Taheruddin Tagore were acquitted in the case. In 2008, the High Court upheld the death sentence of Risaldar Moslem Uddin, but acquitted Ali and Hashem Mridha through two other convicts. Besides, Farooq, Shahriar Rashid, Bazlul Huda and AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, were also released. But when the prosecution appealed against the High Court’s verdict, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of three people and life imprisonment of 12 people given by the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge on April 15, 2013. Among them, Syed Farooq Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda and AKM Mohiuddin were executed at midnight on January 26, 2010 in the murder case of the Father of the Nation.
Ten accused in jail murder case are still absconding. They are: Moslem Uddin, Ali Shah and Abul Hashem Mridha, Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, MHMB Nur Chowdhury, AM Rashed Chowdhury, Ahmad Shariful Hossain, Kismat Hossain and Nazmul who were sentenced to death by the Appellate Division. Ansar. Abdul Majed, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, has died outside the country.
As always, the Awami League will remember and observe this mournful day with due dignity and pain and has taken various programs for this purpose. However, a limited number of programs will be held on Jail Murder Day to prevent global pandemic coronavirus infection.
Various programs will also be celebrated in Kushtia. There is a discussion meeting on the initiative of the district Awami League. There are programmes of various socio-cultural organizations.
