Justice triumphs

On the day the verdict came, a portrait of Mujibur Rahman at his residence, which is now a museum.-MUNIR uz ZAMAN/AFP

THE curtains have finally come down on the most politically sensitive case in Bangladesh the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of the nation, by a group of disgruntled military officers. Truth and justice prevailed after an agonising delay in the legal process when a Supreme Court Bench, on November 19, upheld a High Court verdict confirming the death sentences to 12 military officers in the Bangabandhu murder case, as the case came to be known.

Mujibur Rahman was brutally murdered along with 26 others, including his wife, three sons (one of them was just nine years old), two daughters-in-law, brother, close relatives, political associates and security men in a pre-dawn attack at his Dhanmondi residence in Dhaka on August 15, 1975. Two of his daughters, Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, survived the massacre as they were abroad.

The trial went through an arduous path. The case first came up for hearing in 1996, when Sheikh Hasina, after she became Prime Minister for the first time, removed a legal barrier enacted by the post-Mujib government to protect the killers.

The killing had all the elements aimed at reversing the expected course of the new country, which won independence from Pakistan after a bloody nine-month-long war in 1971 with the promise of secular democracy in a country where Muslims formed an overwhelming majority. Mujibur Rahman, popularly called Bangabandhu (Friend of Bengal), led a fierce, non-violent political struggle to free East Pakistan from the subjugation of West Pakistans (now Pakistan) military rulers.

However, the fear and panic that followed the murder were such that even the police refused to register a criminal case. The impunity enjoyed by the culprits lasted for over two decades, thanks to the military rulers who were the direct beneficiaries of the bloody carnage. It was once widely thought that the former army officers, who usurped state power after completing their killing mission, would never face trial. In fact, they were rewarded with prized diplomatic positions by subsequent regimes.

The shame that accompanied the killings was deepened by the legal protection the killers enjoyed following the proclamation in 1975 of the Indemnity Ordinance by the military government of Khandaker Mostaque Ahmed, the key civilian conspirator in the assassination plot who appointed himself President of the country.

Nowhere in the world has there been such an instance of a deliberate closing of all avenues to justice. This was the shame the nation lived with until the Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina repealed the indemnity law in 1996 and brought the assassins to trial.

The assassination of Mujib not only reversed Bangladeshs political course and halted its progress, but also reintroduced military rule and militancy. Martial law, which Pakistan experienced for the first time in 1958, revisited Bangladesh, and a few months later, on November 3, Tajuddin Ahmed, Syed Nazrul Islam, Mansur Ali and A.H.M. Kamruzzaman, four leaders who were in the forefront of the countrys liberation war against Pakistan and were trusted lieutenants of Bangabandhu, were gunned down inside Dhaka Central Jail. These actions had evidently only one objective to make post-independent Bangladesh leaderless.

After the bloody changeover of 1975, Bangladesh witnessed repeated military and pseudo-democratic governments; democracy and the rule of law were denied. General Ziaur Rahman, the first military dictator and the founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), fortified the indemnity to the assassins by giving the previous executive order a legal shape and making it a part of the Constitution. The second dictator, General H.M. Ershad, who founded the Jatiya Party, followed in his predecessors footsteps. Even when the country got a new democratic life with the fall of Ershad in 1990 following a mass upsurge, the situation remained unchanged. The religious fundamentalists were tactfully rehabilitated.

It was not until the return to power in 1996 of the Awami League, the party that led Bangladeshs liberation war under Mujib, that the murder case could be formally registered, by A.K.M. Mohitul Islam, an assistant of Mujib who was present when the killings took place at Road No. 32 of Dhanmondi in Dhaka. Legal proceedings started, and five of the 12 former army officers were arrested. The rest went into hiding.

The killing of Mujibur Rahman was obviously a welcome development for those who opposed Bangladeshs independence from Pakistan on the basis of a secular nationhood, which in effect rejected Mohammad Ali Jinnahs two-nation theory. The new country was a unique case as it defied the American administration, the Arab world led by Saudi Arabia and also communist China. The Islamists were all out to protect Islam by safeguarding Pakistans unity.

Surprisingly, all the outside adversaries of the liberation war had failed miserably to condemn the worst genocide, rape and arson perpetrated by the Pakistani Army and its local cohorts during the war. It was India and the former Soviet Union which took a bold stand and supported the cause of Bangladesh. India gave shelter to over 10 million refugees and assisted the freedom fighters in all conceivable ways.

The right-wing forces, which emerged powerful in politics and business, covered up for the killers. But as the final verdict was pronounced, and in a situation where pro-liberation politics is dominating the national scene, nobody has openly expressed disapproval of the verdict. In fact, there was spontaneous jubilation across the country as the appellate court pronounced the historic judgment.

The murder case proceeded slowly even after the verdict of the trial court in November 1998 and its subsequent approval by the High Court. The process was not taken to its logical judicial conclusion, thanks to the delays, frequent instances of judges feeling embarrassed to hear the appeals of the convicted, and the indifference of the BNP-Jamaat alliance government in pursuing the case. During the five years of the Four-Party Alliance government (2001-2006) led by Khaleda Zia, widow of Ziaur Rahman, the appeal against the High Court verdict was not disposed of. Khaledas Law Minister defended the delay by saying that there were not enough judges to deal with the matter.

The November 19 judgment is a new milestone for the nation. In the first place, it upholds the idea that the people of Bangladesh, despite all their trials and tribulations, are wedded to the rule of law and will ensure the supremacy of this principle in their collective social and political life. Secondly, the verdict is a clear reflection that crime of any kind and degree can best be handled by a transparent judicial system. It goes to Sheikh Hasinas credit that in 1996 she opted for trial by open court rather than a special one. The accused were given ample time to explore all available avenues to present their cases.

There is another significant aspect of the apex courts verdict: it can now be expected that the culture of changing government through violent means or power-grabbing by men in uniform will come to an end.

Although the assassins and their accomplices justified their action on the grounds that Mujibur Rahman had assumed absolute power under a one-party (Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League) system of governance and that he enforced and suppressed his political opponents, pro-liberation Bangladesh continued to view the assassination and the coup as a plot hatched to steer the newly formed country away from its avowed path of socialism, democracy, nationalism and secularism. History did not approve the cover-up. As days went by, the assassins of Bangabandhu turned out to be the worst villains and enemies of Bangladesh, its sovereignty, people, culture and values.

Khaleda Zia, the main opposition leader and two-time Prime Minister, has not issued a formal statement so far. The Jamaat-e-Islami was cautious in welcoming the verdict. The ruling Awami League said that the nation was freed from the black scar it bore for 34 years. The people at large demanded immediate execution of the criminals.

Bangladesh has changed significantly in the past two decades. The new generations, which were taught the distorted history of the nations independence by the military rulers and their political cohorts, overwhelmingly support exemplary punishment to the killers of Mujib.

With the final verdict pronounced in the case, there are no legal restraints to its execution. The Awami League, which got a huge majority, is all set to revive the 1972 Constitution and hold trials for all major political killings, including the killing in jail of four national leaders. The government has already initiated a process to unearth the mystery behind the August 21, 2004, grenade attack on Sheikh Hasina.

Criticism apart, the 10-month-old government led by Sheikh Hasina is bold and promise-bound, but not free from risks. Personally, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman faces a constant threat to her life.