Local authorities in Dhaka arrested the killer of Bangladesh’s independence leader, Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 7 April 2020. Captain Abdul Majed had been sentenced to death in 1998 while still at large. Tanzia Haq reports.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan stated that the arrest was ‘the biggest gift’ for Bangladeshis on the year of Bangabandhu’s birth centenary. In November 2009, the Bangladesh Supreme Court upheld the death sentences of 12 people accused in the assassination case, of which Majed was one. On 15 August 1975, soon after the Bangladesh Liberation War, Majed and his supporters murdered Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family. Since then Majed has been evading capture and was most recently hiding in India for several years. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana Siddiq are the sole survivors of Bangabandhur’s family, who had been in Germany at the time of the assassination.
Majed’s mercy petition was turned down today by President Abdul Hamid. The date of his execution is still to be decided by the home ministry and state authorities.
Of the 12 accused, five had been executed on 27 January 2010. One passed away in Zimbabwe in June 2001 and five remain at large.
Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan after nine months of war on 16 December 1971.
