‘All fugitive killers of Bangabandhu will be brought back in Mujib Year’

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Tuesday expressed his hope to bring back the remaining five fugitive convicted killers of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by Mujib Year.

His comment came hours after police confirmed arrest of one of the condemned fugitives, Abdul Majed, who was on the run to escape the hangman's noose.

In a message circulated on social media Tuesday, the foreign minister said, "It's good news amid this coronavirus crisis." 

He referred to the government's earlier efforts to arrest at least one of the fugitive killers in the Mujib year, marking the birth centenary of the founding father of Bangladesh.

The foreign minister said out of the remaining five fugitive killers, one was now in the USA and one in Canada.

Five of the absconding fugitives are Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Shariful Haque Dalim, SHMB Noor Chowdhury, AM Rashed Chowdhury and Moslehuddin Khan. 

Twelve ex-military officers were sentenced to death for the August 15, 1975 killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members, and five of them were executed while one died a natural death.

The five were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on January 28, 2010, after a protracted legal procedure while the delayed trial process began in 1996 when an infamous indemnity law was scrapped as it was protecting the assassins from justice until then.

They were sacked lieutenant colonels Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed and sacked major Bazlul Huda while another convict, sacked colonel Rashed Pasha, died a natural death in Zimbabwe while on the run.

Farooq Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, and Mohiuddin Ahmed of artillery faced the trial in the judge court while Huda was extradited from Thailand and another Mohiuddin, known as lancer Mohiuddin, was sent back from the United States after the then district judge Golam Rasul delivered the judgment.