From The Telegraph, Calcutta:
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Bazlul Huda, a bespectacled man in his 60s, was the first to walk to the gallows, his face covered with a black hood and hands cuffed behind.
As the guards escorted him to the brightly lit gallows inside Dhaka Central Jail, the former major and one of the plotters of Mujibur Rahman’s assassination struggled to free himself and screamed for his life as loud as he could.
Within minutes, he was on a wooden platform with a manila rope round his hooded neck. A jail official waved and dropped a red handkerchief to the ground — a signal for the executioner to go ahead.
As the executioner pulled the lever, the wooden planks under Huda’s feet slid open, letting his lanky frame swing into the void below.
“It’s over,” said a government doctor examining the body after it had been brought down from the gallows. “He is dead.”
It was just past midnight. More:
From Asia Sentinel:
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
The first few weeks of the year may finally witness the execution, 35 years after the fact, of the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh who led the 1971 Bangladesh war for independence from Pakistan. The marathon time lapse between the arrests of the killers, disgruntled Bangladesh Army officers, and their execution is inextricably intertwined with the ups and downs of Bangladeshi politics.
The countdown to the execution began with t he signing of the death warrants on Jan. 3. The warrants have been served on five of the killers in Dhaka Central Jail, where they have been imprisoned. Six more who have been charged with the assassination are still on the run. Under Bangladesh law, if the convicts fail to get pardoned from the president, they are to be executed 21 to 28 days after the issuance of the warrants. A pardon is hardly likely since the president, Zilur Rahman, is understandably sympathetic to the prime minister,Sheik Hasina Wajed, Mujibur’s daughter and one of only two of his family who weren’t killed by the plotters in the events of August of 1975.
Soon after the gory incident, the Mujib-led Awami League government, which Sheikh Hasina has headed since her father’s death, was turned out of power and Khondker Mushtaque Ahmed took over as president. Khondker promulgated an indemnity ordinance on September 26, 1975 with the aim of stopping the trial. The next 10 years after the killings witnessed snail-like progress. More:
The bloody mutiny has shaken Sheikh Hasina, democracy and the region. She now has to deal with Islamist forces, hardline officers and political opponents, says Fariha Karim in Tehelka:
Theories have emerged from sections of the Indian press that shipping magnate Salauddin Qadeer Chowdhury, alleged to be close to Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, was involved. Growing counter-claims have also been made, primarily by Pakistan, of the role of India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. While experts agree that affixing blame is still premature, they are also unanimous about the involvement of a bigger player than just the BDR.
According to Major Muniruzzaman, who heads the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security: “What happened is in the interests of anyone who wants to weaken Bangladesh to the level of a failing state. Anyone looking at border capacity would be hitting the BDR, as would anyone who wants to settle scores with the armed forces or the BDR. But there is a complete lack of information. We can’t jump to any conclusions without an investigation.”
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From The Economist:
Parliament in Dhaka was this week restored to its intended use; parliamentarians, sadly, returned to their old abuses. A makeshift prison for much of the two years, ending in December 2008, that Bangladesh was ruled by an army-backed interim government, the parliament complex housed the leaders of the two big political parties: Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League (AL) and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
On January 25th, however, a month after the league won a general election by a landslide, parliament reconvened for the first time. True to old form, the opposition BNP walked out in protest. The reason was bizarre: it claimed that the president, Iajuddin Ahmed-whom the BNP had picked in late 2006 as the head of a caretaker government to oversee (and rig) an election due in January 2007-had violated the constitution by failing to hold the vote on time. Three days later, it walked out again, miffed at seating arrangements.
More:
From Al Jazeera:
Sheika Hasina Wajed, the 61-year-old leader of the left-of-centre Awami League party, has claimed a landslide election victory following the December 29 general election. A consummate survivor, Hasina has overcome myriad corruption and extortion allegations, jail, violence and security threats to lead her country for a second time. More:
And from BBC:
The life of Bangladesh Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina, almost from her childhood, has been characterised by a series of highs and lows. The highs included witnessing as a child her father’s release from imprisonment in Pakistan to become Bangladesh’s first president and her own stint as prime minister in which she was undisputed leader of her country and her Awami League. More:
The visit of the Bangladesh army chief followed by the flagging of the Maitree Express is cause for optimism on both sides of the border, reports Jyoti Malhotra in Mint
If wishes were horses, India and Bangladesh could easily ride off into the sunset together.
So, when Bangladesh army chief Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed arrived in Delhi in late February, the first army chief from that country to visit India, army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor gifted him with two stallions and four mares, handpicked from the army’s Remount Veterinary Corps. The six horses cost Rs3.6 crore (Rs1 crore each for the stallions and Rs40 lakh for each mare), but Indian officials are emphatic about the fact that its money well spent. “The fact that this Bangladesh army chief is a muktijoddha (freedom fighter) indicates that he is well disposed to India,’’ said a senior Indian government official, who did not wish to be identified.
[Pic: The Maitree Express on its maiden Kolkata-Dhaka run on April 13. Madhu Kapparath/Mint]
