Mujib killers were told that Bangladesh to be monarchy

DHAKA - Mutineers who killed Bangladesh’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 were provoked by an army officer with a ’story’ that their country was about to be declared a ‘monarchy’, which would be subservient to neighbouring India, the Supreme Court has been told.

A bench of the apex court, which resumed after many years the murder trial and appeals by some of those convicted and sentenced to death, was told that Lt. Col. Syed Farooq Rahman had made a confession about this before a magistrate. Rahman was later dismissed from the army.

The former officer said that Aug 14, 1975, he “had excited his colleagues, saying that the president would proclaim monarchy in the country on Aug 15, the democracy will be damaged and the country will go under the possession of India and therefore they should depose the government of Sheikh Mujib, The Daily Star reported Wednesday.

Following this, the army men attacked the residence of then president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and killed him and 28 others on the morning of Aug 15, 1975.

The confessional statement was placed before the apex court by Abdullah-al Mamun, counsel for two other convicts, Bazlul Huda and A.K.M. Mohiuddin Ahmed, on the second day of the trial that has resumed under tight security.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, the government’s highest law official, did not rule out ’sabotage’, The New Nation newspaper said.

Alam also told the court that lawyers and journalists on television talk shows were making “different comments on the consequence of the case, which is not right”.

The five-member Appellate Division headed by Justice Md. Tafazzal Islam asked the lawyers and journalists to be careful in making statements or reports on this case.

The court said not only both the parties in the case but all, including the media, should observe restraint on the matter.